Charlie
by InChrist-Billios
Summary: The princess of Folall was cursed to be pricked by a spindle and die on her 16th birthday, but when the witch's kidnapping plot goes awry and the prince charming begins to chase after them, the villain finds herself in an unexpected adventure of her own. (Photo credit on profile)
1. Chapter 1

**14 . 7 . 11**

**Hello all! Thank you for dropping by my story. This one has a bit of an explanation behind it, as I wrote it for the ACA Forum's recent Ficathon. (Check it out! There's a link to the Introductions thread on my bio page.)**** It was written for **Delia Anole** in response to a prompt she supplied. I hope you enjoy it, **Delia**! And everyone else, of course. I'd love to hear your thoughts; all you have to do is press the little button at the bottom of the page…!**

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><p>"I want to have a party!"<p>

This cry is not an uncommon one amongst whining children, but a casual listener would have been set back upon hearing it delivered by the voice of a teenage girl on the verge of womanhood. Even stranger, the reply:

"Amethyst, you know that would not be safe."

But this is the dialogue that occurred in a corridor of the Folalli castle one spring afternoon. The date was March the 12th; less than a fortnight before the princess' 16th birthday. Incidentally, it was the Princess Amethyst who wished a party to commemorate this event, and her mother, Queen Opal, who was so adamant against the idea.

"Do you think someone is going to bring a spindle to a ball, mother?" Amethyst cried. "You are completely paranoid! Even more paranoid than Micah, who is constantly breathing down my neck. Ahem!"

"My apologies, your majesty."

That guard had, admittedly, been standing rather too close to the princess, but he was merely zealous in his task of protecting the Crown Princess at all costs. The mention of the spindle particularly put him on edge, so he had inched closer. Given the strange story of her christening, he cannot much be blamed for his worry. (He also had just been promoted to the Princess' Personal Guard, which he had been aspiring to since he had gotten his promotion to the Castle Sub-Guard League a year previous. His buoyancy was almost dangerous.)

The queen gave Micah a weary look, and the man cringed slightly, his excitement deflated. She sighed and put a hand to her forehead.

"Don't do that," Amethyst said, pointing her finger warningly. "Don't act like I'm giving you a headache. Worrying about everything all the time is what's giving you a headache, and that's your own fault."

"I don't worry about _everything_," Queen Opal protested.

"Just me," Amethyst finished, crossing her arms and raising her eyebrows, as if goading her mother to deny it.

Opal did not deign to reply, choosing to instead adjust the clip in her hair which was in desperate need of attention.

"Mother, nothing is going to happen to me," Amethyst said quietly.

She glanced quickly down the corridor to be sure no one would overhear her. She forgot about Micah, however, and as the man was an accomplished gossip and well within earshot, she needn't have bothered. Every servant in the palace would know of their conversation before nightfall.

"You don't know that," Opal argued fiercely, but she kept her voice low as well.

"And if it does," Amethyst continued without missing a beat, "it won't happen at the party if we throw it the week _before _my birthday."

The queen bit her lip uncertainly, and Amethyst seized the moment of indecision.

"Mother," Amethyst said, in a voice dangerously close to a whine. "I'll have Micah with me the whole time."

She reached over her shoulder and knocked on the man's shiny chestplate; even the queen's crippling look hadn't deterred his enthusiasm for long, and he had regained his former position directly behind the princess.

"I'll even invite Tyrillius," Amethyst threw in as a last resort, hoping the romantic part of her mother would outweigh the anxious part this time.

Queen Opal's face lit up, and Amethyst had to fight the urge to roll her eyes at her mother's sudden delight. It was the Queen's grand idea that Amethyst would marry Prince Tyrillius when she turned 18, and she usually insisted that Amethyst invite him to every party or gathering she threw, despite the fact that Syndoc — where Prince Tyrillius lived — was almost a two day carriage ride from Folall.

The only other event that the Queen clung to with as much tenacity as this imaginary wedding, though in the opposite way, was the source of her most recent anxiety: her daughter's impending curse. Everyone knew of the curse, but no one spoke of it — hoping, perhaps, that by neglecting to mention it, the curse might get its feelings hurt and slink off without doing any damage.

This was an absurd idea, of course, as curses have no sentience and, thus, no feelings. But one would be hard-pressed to argue this with the well-meaning peasants of Folall.

In any regard, the curse was even more often in the thoughts of the Folalli people, especially the queen, as the princess' 16th birthday — the day the curse would befall her — approached.

"Well, I'll talk to your father about it," Queen Opal finally said. "If he thinks it's a good idea, we'll see what we can do."

Amethyst sighed, but didn't press the issue further. She had been hoping to convince her mother to supply a favorable answer without consulting with her father, but given her mother's current state of agitation, she decided to consider that much a victory.

"Now, go back to your lessons," Queen Opal said, walking past her daughter to continue toward the gardens: where she had been heading before she was intercepted. "I'm sure your geography tutor is expecting you."

"Yes, mother," Amethyst replied dutifully, curtsying at her mother's back before flouncing off down the hall. The tall guard kept pace with her evenly, though he nearly trod on her train a few times.

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><p>The conversation between Queen Opal and King Desmond went unnoticed by the Princess Amethyst, but this was merely because her chambers were on the opposite side of the castle from her parents'. The servants were very aware of the conversation and might, if pressed, be able to recite the more amusing bits that pierced the oak-paneled walls and doors.<p>

Despite its volume, however, the outcome was favorable to Amethyst's request (Opal was not pleased) and so the Royal Event Coordinator was dispatched to Amethyst's chamber at 8 o'clock sharp the following morning.

"Your majesty, Princess Amethyst." The voice called urgently through the door and into Amethyst's drowsy ears, but she did not fully awaken until the man began rapping insistently.

"I'm very sorry to wake you," the man's voice continued as Amethyst groaned and rolled out of her bed and dragged herself to the door; she didn't much care for mornings.

"A thousand apologies, your majesty, but—"

The door opened then — Amethyst was raking a hairbrush through her messy auburn hair and yawning, a thick robe draped across her shoulders unevenly. The man was slightly taken aback at her dishevelment; he had somehow expected to see the princess as he normally saw her at meals and in the hallways, even though he had been informed that she would most probably be still sleeping. He, like many other servants, was under the subconscious belief that their monarchs were always appropriately dressed and prepared for every situation, and he wasn't sure what to do now that this belief had been proven wrong.

Thankfully, the man was saved from having to take the first action when Amethyst spoke, her words slurred by a yawn.

"Holy sword and sceptre," she said tiredly. "Who are you, and what do you want at this ungodly hour?"

"I'm terribly sorry to disturb you," the man repeated, trying to gather his sensibilities as he did so and dropping into a quick bow. "I'm Earl Brandworthy: the Royal Event Coordinator. Her royal highness informed me that there is to be a ball held in honor of your 16th birthday in twelve days' time."

"There is?" Amethyst screeched, jumping and hugging the Coordinator fiercely while her hairbrush clattered unnoticed to the floor.

"Th—that doesn't leave us much time to plan," the man stuttered uncomfortably as Amethyst crushed all the air from his lungs.

"This will be the best party ever!" she shouted, heedless of his skeptical tone and other general discomfort.

With a final squeeze, however, she did let him go. He straightened his clothes accordingly and avoided her eyes; he was blushing slightly, but she didn't notice.

"Give me thirty minutes to get properly dressed, and we can begin planning," Amethyst said, smiling madly and bouncing on her toes. She cupped her hands around her mouth then and shouted down the corridor. "Renee! _Renee!_ Where is that maid? She's never around when I want her. _RENEE!"_

"I'll find her, your highness," the man said, bowing again.

"Thank you," Amethyst replied, flashing him a bright smile. "Thirty minutes!"

The door slammed in his face, leaving him blinking and still trying to totally process the rather sporadic conversation that had just occurred. He took a step backward, turning to leave the hallway, and promptly tripped over the forgotten hairbrush Amethyst had dropped in her excitement. Slightly clumsy, the man almost fell completely over, but he managed to catch himself just in time. He knelt and scooped up the brush, then turned to the Princess' door and hesitated.

Having never been in a situation quite like this one, Earl Brandworthy was positively uncertain of the proper course of action. Should he knock on the door and return it to the princess himself, or would it suffice to leave it on the floor outside of her door and allow the maid, Renee, to grab it on her way in.

He looked down the hall vainly, in hopes that Renee would be scurrying toward the princess' chambers already, but there was no one there.

"She will probably need this," he muttered to himself.

It might have been a justification, but it was a valid point. He shook his head, looked up at the ceiling, then stepped forward and knocked on the princess' door once more.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to knock, Renee, just come—"

Amethyst threw the door open and froze mid-sentence when she saw the Royal Event Coordinator once more instead of her personal maid.

He quickly looked away and took several steps back, blushing hotly.

"I'm—I'm so sorry! I just—the—" he stammered, holding the hairbrush out helplessly as an explanation.

Amethyst blinked, then came to the realization that she was standing in front of a man in just her chemise and blushed crimson, closing the door most of the way.

"No harm done, Sir Brandworthy," Amethyst said, her voice a bit shaky from embarrassment and taking the hairbrush. "Um, yes. I'll see you in a half-hour," she finished awkwardly, then quickly shut the door.

"I'm not an earl," he whispered in reply, after he regained the use of his tongue; but the door was already closed and Amethyst couldn't hear him. "It's just my name."

"What's that, sir?"

He jumped at the female voice behind him and turned around quickly. A young woman, around Amethyst's own age, stood before him dressed in the uniform of a personal maid.

"Nothing," he said quickly. "Renee?"

"That's me," the teenager said with a curtsy. "Was her highness calling for me?"

"Yes," Earl said, shaking his head to get his mind working again. "She's, ah, in a bit of a rush."

"Well, I'd better get to it then," Renee said, curtsying to Earl again and smiling politely.

He bowed in response, and Renee knocked lightly on Amethyst's door before turning the knob and slipping into the room.

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><p><strong>So, that was the first chapter. Thoughts? Those who may be more familiar with my writing may have noticed that this is a slightly different style. Any opinions on that?<strong>

**Reviewers get a Ring Pop!**


	2. Chapter 2

**27 . 7 . 11**

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><p>Neither Earl nor Amethyst mentioned the morning's incident when he knocked on her door again thirty minutes later — partially because Amethyst had nearly forgotten that anything had happened. The princess was used to being in various states of undress in front of myriad people, as she often needed more than one servant to simply get into a fancier dress, and there were usually makeup artists and hairdressers present as well. Some of the manservants even saw her in less than presentable attire when delivering urgent messages, and one of the most skilled hairdressers in the castle was, in fact, a man. It is completely understandable, then, that though Amethyst blushed when realizing her impropriety at the time, the event had all but passed from her memory by the time she met Earl again a half-hour later.<p>

Earl, however, was having difficulty thinking of much else, and he had issue meeting her eyes when the princess greeted him warmly, now dressed in a casual dress of a bright blue. He had never before seen a woman in such a state, and the very thought of it made him blush again as he offered the princess his arm.

The princess politely refrained from commenting and merely took his arm with a smile and began to walk down the hallway.

"I started organizing things in the Secondary Conference Room," Earl said, breaking the silence which seemed awkward to him, though Amethyst considered it quite amiable.

She had been daydreaming about her party, actually, and was a bit disoriented when his needless statement interrupted her reverie. Earl, noticing her confused look, continued:

"Will that be suitable for planning?"

"That sounds wonderful, Sir Brandworthy," Amethyst said absently, resuming her private thoughts as soon as she had replied.

She was trying to decide whether or not she wanted a Masquerade, in fact, and the pros and cons of this idea were very involving of her mental processes. On the one hand, it was quite an exotic theme, and quite befitting of such a monumental birthday as this one certainly was. She didn't quite address the reasons behind its importance, even to herself, but the subconscious thought lingering beneath all her plans was the idea that if everything did _not _go well as she constantly told her mother it would, this would be the last party she would have in a long while; it might as well be one to remember.

"Please, your highness," Earl said quickly, unaware that he was interrupting a very important decision. "Do not call me sir — I am only a servant."

"Oh!" Amethyst said, looking oddly at him. The Masquerade was forgotten, replaced by this puzzle. Amethyst loved puzzles; she had absolutely no patience for them. "I thought you said you were an earl."

"My apologies, your majesty," he said, ducking his head. "Earl is my name."

"What a queer name, Earl," the princess mused, rolling it around in her mouth a few times. "Earl, Earl, Earl. I rather like it, in fact. And I think it suits you."

At this firm approval of his name, Earl nodded his head again deeply in gratitude.

"Thank you, your majesty," Earl said.

"Call me Amethyst," the princess said, waving away his nicety like a pesky insect. The only thing she had less patience for than puzzles was formalities, and she liked to explain the reasoning behind her dislike to anyone who would listen: "I haven't done anything remarkable in my life to earn these clumsy titles yet, so I see no sense in people using them."

"But your highness—" Earl started.

Amethyst lifted her hand warningly.

"None of that. Or I shall order you to call me what my mother calls me. It's dreadfully familiar."

Amethyst hazarded that that would be a good enough warning for Earl, and she guessed correctly. The man flushed again at the thought of such impudence and merely bowed his head deferentially in reply.

"As you wish, then."

They had reached the Secondary Conference Room by this point, so Earl seized upon the distraction and opened the door with a bow. Amethyst just grinned and entered, amused by this easily embarrassed servant, and surveyed the room.

It was smaller than the Primary Conference Room, able to seat only ten people around the rectangular table, which had been filled halfway with scattered papers. Quickly guessing in which spot Earl had been sitting (the papers seemed to radiate outward from the seat near the center of the table) Amethyst took a seat next to it. Earl hastily pulled out her chair for her, then sat down at the hub of the paperwork and began to explain the limits and budget of the party as he had begun to understand it, given the current monthly income of the palace and the queen's express wish that it be "a small gathering."

Amethyst listened politely for a few minutes, but soon felt it necessary to add in her own ideas and visions in the midst of his explanations as she felt them applicable. Talk soon turned from money and rules to themes and decorations, and Amethyst was even more talkative along that vein.

Earl soon discovered that Amethyst was a very lofty thinker, and while some of her ideas had merit, most of them were simply outlandish. As Earl had come off before as a bashful and reserved individual, it was quite a surprise when he proved himself to be very focused and insistent when in his element: in the role of the Royal Event Coordinator.

It turned out that Earl had quite the knack for negotiation, knowing instinctively which points he could sacrifice and which he couldn't. When dealing with a slightly petulant creature, such as the Princess Amethyst, this was a particularly important skill. She took to her grand ideas with an unbelievable fierceness, and while most would relinquish the fight when faced with her glare and quick words, Earl managed to smoothly guide her away from these ideas without even coming to a confrontation.

The servants, having heard about the party's existence from either Micah or the Royal Argument of the night before, had been clucking and "poor dear"ing the Royal Event Coordinator's fate, or else taking bets on when the young man would abandon his post. But no shouts or crying issued forth from the Secondary Conference Room, and the door remained closed all morning. The castle was flummoxed, and servants began to bicker about who would be taking lunch in to the pair, so they could see for themselves whether or not Earl was still alive.

The Superior Lunch Overseer knocked on the Secondary Conference Room door at precisely noon, gloating in his victory and eager to see what was happening on the other side of the door. Hubert was his name, and he'd almost been cheated out of the job by a server named Michael who claimed that delivering lunch was technically his job and not Hubert's — but a swift tussle proved Hubert the victor and left Michael with a black eye.

The princess bade Hubert come in, and the man entered with a bow, greeting both the princess and Earl with a muted tone and taking his time placing the tray of chicken sandwiches and cold mint tea on a clear spot on the table.

"Is it time for lunch already?" the princess exclaimed. "I feel as though we've only just started!"

"It is noon, your highness," Hubert replied with a bow.

"Oh! Very well then," the girl said. "I am rather hungry I suppose. Are you, Earl?"

"I am a bit," Earl admitted, nodding to Hubert in a familiar manner; the two had been acquaintances since childhood, when Hubert had fractured Earl's nose in a game of Red Rover.

The princess thanked Hubert and took a sandwich, then continued on in what must have been the conversation before Hubert arrived.

"So, I was thinking the ice sculptures could float on the pond, almost as if they were swimming across it, to greet the guests as they arrived."

Hubert was extremely concerned that the pair should be able to drink without further interruption to their conversation, so he poured two glasses of tea and set them in front of the pair quietly.

"That would definitely coordinate with your theme," Earl said, taking a sandwich for himself and thanking Hubert for the tea.

"Yes," the princess said decisively. "Everything shall be crystal. Perhaps there can be crystal in the sculptures, even."

"The crystal would be almost unnoticeable in the ice," Earl pointed out. "Especially if they are on the lake."

"That is true," the princess mused, sitting further back in her chair.

Hubert replaced the pitcher on the tray, and bowed again, walking to the door with measured steps.

"Perhaps if the sculptures were just inside the ballroom, greeting the guests there," Earl suggested. "Then the crystal accents would be much more noticeable."

"Especially under the chandeliers and candlelight — of course!" the princess said happily. "That's perfect!"

Hubert backed out of the door, shutting it behind him, and turned around into Fiona and Natalie, who were awaiting his arrival all-too-eagerly.

"Breathing room," Hubert said, gently pushing the sisters back a few steps. They were related to Micah MacLean; personal space and enthusiasm issues ran in the family.

"How is Earl holding up?" Fiona asked immediately.

"Is he getting a word in edgewise?" Natalie asked.

"Is Princess Amethyst crying?" Fiona added, craning her ear toward the door as if hoping to catch a stray sob.

"Is _Earl _crying?" Natalie corrected with a snicker.

"Fine, yes, no, and no," Hubert answered succinctly.

It wasn't that Hubert didn't care about the conversation that he had just heard; he had, after all, blackened an eye in order to hear it. But knowing the propensity of the MacLean family to gossip (another heritable trait, so it seemed) he decided to starve the stories where they usually began and spread the rumors himself for once.

With this plan in mind, he smiled patronizingly and said,

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go make sure that Michael isn't blubbering all over the Royal Luncheon."

He left the two women disappointed, then, listening as best they could through the thick door. Unfortunately for them — and fortunately for Hubert's plan — while Amethyst was not particularly prone to subtlety or quiet conversation, Earl's controlled tone had influenced her own greatly; their conversation was too quiet to be heard.

Dinner was brought to the room in much the same manner as lunch: Hubert delivered it and refused to divulge any details to the lingering MacLeans (Micah had joined his sisters under pretense of guarding the princess). The trio had given up waiting and gone back to their chambers by the time the Princess and the Royal Event Coordinator removed themselves from the Secondary Conference Room.

"I'll be sure the invitations are winging their way toward your guests by dawn," Earl promised, opening the door for the princess and bowing.

"But there's so much left to plan!" Amethyst protested, even as she walked through the door. "We've barely started the decorations!"

"There will be plenty of time for that tomorrow," Earl assured her.

"I suppose you're right," Amethyst admitted regretfully, then stifled a yawn. "I am a bit tired, anyway."

"I bid thee goodnight, then," Earl said, closing the door and bowing once more.

"When shall we meet tomorrow?" Amethyst asked, halting her steps, which had begun to take her back to her wing.

"Would nine o'clock be suitable?" Earl asked, biting the 'your highness' off the end of his sentence before it slipped out.

"Nine o'clock," Amethyst said decidedly. "Goodnight, Earl."

"Goodnight," Earl repeated, bowing once more for good measure, and they parted ways.

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><p>The invitations were sent out at dawn, as promised, though the castle calligraphers were none too happy about it. Most were delivered to houses of nobility around the plain-filled country of Folall, but one unfortunate messenger by the name of Diggory (he was the youngest and most easily bullied of the messenger boys) was given the task of delivering an invitation to Prince Tyrillius of Syndoc.<p>

The royal palace of Syndoc was a hard day's ride from the Folalli palace, and almost half of that ride was through the Pry Desert: a hot and sandy expanse on the western border of Syndoc. Poor Diggory was unused to such difficult rides and had never before traversed the Pry Desert, so it was little wonder that the gate guard had to help the boy off his horse and into the castle kitchens for some water before he properly remembered why he'd even come.

"I have a message for Prince Tyrillius," Diggory finally said after gulping down two glasses of water.

"From Folall?" the guard asked, spying the country's flag embroidered on the boy's bag: yellow, blue, and white stripes behind the royal family's coat-of-arms.

"From Princess Amethyst, specifically," the boy expounded.

This caught the attention of the servants in the kitchen who were beginning to prepare dinner, and a few of them glanced with renewed interest at the bedraggled specimen of manhood. Noticing the sudden increase in eyeballs fixated on his person, Diggory loosed another tidbit:

"An invitation to a ball."

"Well, I'm sure he'll be pleased," the guard said with as much indifference as he could muster and waving to a butler who had just appeared. "Bring this fellow to Prince Tyrillius, Bevan."

The man had just popped into the kitchen to snag a morsel of biscuit from his wife, who always saved him the burnt corners, but he redirected his attention swiftly to look over the messenger. Clearly unimpressed with the meager sight, he looked at the guard with a raised eyebrow.

"I have to return to my post," the guard said, standing. "If you wouldn't mind?"

"Of course not," Bevan said, beckoning to Diggory. "Right this way, lad."

He winked at his wife over Diggory's head and then left the kitchen, the boy in tow.

Diggory followed Bevan up several winding staircases and through countless hallways before they finally reached the prince's room. Even before the door was in sight, voices from within the room could be heard quarreling with one another in a remarkably heated fashion. The subject of the argument was not one of any seriousness, though the tones with which the dispute was carried out attempted to prove otherwise.

The disagreement was on the topic of jousting; Prince Tyrillius insisted that his friend Lord Everett would win the current tournament, and Crown Prince Simon was certain his most loyal companion, Sir Timothy, would be the victor.

Diggory was intimidated by the angry voices and looked at Bevan for guidance, but the older man looked completely dispassionate; this was a fairly normal occurrence, and certainly nothing to be concerned about. The royal family of Syndoc believed that shouting cured most problems and, curiously, they were mostly right. The tough people of Syndoc sometimes just needed increased volume of the discussion in order to accomplish many things they were unwilling to partake of before the yelling occurred. As such, the Syndocians were not completely welcome at peace conferences, but they had few issues outside of their own country, so that was all very well.

Bevan knocked on the door firmly and hailed the princes, just loud enough to be heard over the shouting.

"Your highnesses, if you please."

"Yes, what is it Bevan?" the deeper of the two voices called, sounding perfectly congenial.

Even still, Diggory eased himself a bit behind Bevan, in case of any sudden verbal onslaught.

"There is a message here for Prince Tyrillius, sire," Bevan replied.

"You can tell my father I didn't forget about that meeting," a lighter, friendlier voice called. The man added a post-script that was probably supposed to go unheard by Bevan and Diggory, but his recent yelling had altered his perception of loudness: "Ever since I slept through that trade meeting three years ago, he perpetually reminds me. I'm twenty years of age, Simon."

The other man responded in an equally not-quiet mutter:

"You know Father."

"It's from Folall, sire," Bevan said, glancing to the side to look at Diggory and doing a double-take when he realized he wasn't there. "Where the—!" he exclaimed, turning around, then sighing when he found Diggory directly behind him.

"Oh, come in then," Prince Tyrillius said, sounding much more interested.

"Don't be shy," Bevan said to Diggory under his breath, putting a hand firmly on Diggory's back and propelling him toward the door.

Diggory was not shy exactly, though he had gone through a season of the affliction as a child, and he had not ever quite recovered. He was, however, flighty, and it was this quality that was causing his apprehension at the present. Nevertheless, Bevan heartlessly opened the door and pushed the messenger inside.

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><p><strong>Review Prompt Of The Day: Who's your favorite character so far?<strong>

furgil12**: Thanks! I hope this was soon enough for you. -smile- Thanks for reading and reviewing!**

Mazzie**: I'm glad you think so. And yes, it does seem to be working well from my estimation as well. Although it makes everything take dreadfully longer. I'd imagine Amethyst is quite sheltered, yes, in addition to a possibly bratty temperament she might have received from being an only child, who is also a princess. Not that all only children or princesses are brats, but it seems like a bad combination if you're looking to have a nice, well-rounded child. I'm pleased that you like Micah so much — your liking him may or may not have been the impetus for making him a slightly more major character than I originally intended. -shifty eyes- Hah! Earl is precious. What a bad name for a servant; I don't want to know what his mother was thinking.**

Byrd**: Oh! Folall is the name of the country, not her last name. Sorry for the confusion. I hope that got cleared up this chapter. Ha! I'm glad you liked that line; I think I chuckled a bit as a wrote it. Yes, Amethyst's age / only-childness / sheleteredness have not made her an overwhelmingly lovely person to be around just now. -chuckle-**

Captain**: I thought you might enjoy the active narrator. You seemed to be a fan of it in "Daggers and Peas" anyway, and this style reminded me of that. It will be interesting to see how well I keep this up through an entire story. Heh. Yes! I love that line as well. It made me laugh. (Is that conceited? I don't know.) Earl is a doll; I love him. And how do you like the new characters?**

Miss Papillon**: Thanks! I'm glad you like them; they're so delightfully awkward. -chuckle- Thank you for reading and reviewing!**

daring2dream**: Darie! Heavens, I haven't seen you about since I Do! I'm so glad you decided to pop in for this story; it should be a fun one. -hands an extra Ring Pop as a welcome present- Anyway, thanks! I don't know why I named the royal women after stones… It just sort of occurred to me that Amethyst would be a cool Princess name, and then Opal seemed to make sense for her mother. Thanks again for reading and reviewing — don't become a stranger! -smile-**

Faylinn**: I know, right? They crack me up. I think that's an excellent description of Amethyst. "Typically fifteen. Party party party." Hah. Thanks! And, I do hope so. I think it'll end up being one of my more lighthearted stories, strictly because of the style making things more amusing than they probably are.**

Delia**: Yes of course! -hands a Ring Pop- Thanks! I'm glad you're liking the style so far. It's an adventure writing in this voice, for sure. I haven't really explored the active narrator idea in a full story (although I wrote a short story with an active narrator called "Daggers and Peas" here on FF). Don't worry — I promise you'll be able to see where your prompt fits in due time. -grin- Amethyst is certainly happy-go-lucky… and perhaps a bit whiny. Hah. But, like you said, what else could you expect? -chuckle- I love all the awkwardness too — I'm glad you're enjoying it! And thanks for not expecting a whole lot; I am really enjoying this story, but I have become a bit busier of late. Apparently being engaged is a time-consuming process. Who knew? -laugh-**

Eva**: "Exuberant and demanding" is another great description of Amethyst. You reviewers are so good at pinpointing my characters. I love it! Anyway. Oo, I love the descriptions of the stones! I must be honest in saying that I named Amethyst on a whim after thinking to myself, "You know? I think Amethyst would actually be a cool name. I could call her Am, Ame, Ammie, or Amy! What a plethora of nicknames!" And so I named her Amethyst, and Opal just seemed to fit her mother. I don't know. Sorry to disappoint you. But thanks for reviewing! And I will expect more in your next review! -wink- I hope you had fun away travelling.**

**Reviewers get a Hershey's Truffle Kiss!**


	3. Chapter 3

**14 . 1 . 12**

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><p>Upon Diggory's personally-undesired entrance to the prince's chamber, his eyes took in the lavishly decorated room, and the two lavishly decorated men occupying it, in a moment. Much to his relief, neither prince seemed particularly angry or warlike in posture; they reclined lazily in plush, red velvet chairs with golden arms that gleamed in the light. He deduced quickly that the bearded man on the right was probably the Crown Prince, so he bowed first to him, then to the one whom he suspected was Prince Tyrillius.<p>

"Your highnesses," he murmured respectfully, still quelling the urge to run, though there was no apparent danger.

He didn't like being so close to royalty. He normally just handed letters to butlers and they did the talking. What was he to say to this pair of men? One of them would be ruling the kingdom of Syndoc, and the other quite possibly the kingdom of Folall — if the marriage was arranged as suspected. Diggory's knees quavered slightly.

"Yes, very well," the Crown Prince said, gesturing at Diggory to rise. "What news is there from Folall, lad? I did not think anything of import was occurring there just now."

The man's eyes held a mischievous gleam that Diggory didn't quite understand.

"Oh stop it, Simon," Prince Tyrillius said, punching his brother lightly in the arm.

Unsure what to say to this puzzling exchange, Diggory cautiously continued delivering his message; he figured once he was done with that, he could leave, and _that_ was his current overarching goal.

"You've been invited to attend a ball to celebrate Princess Amethyst's 16th birthday," Diggory said, then jumped when Prince Simon suddenly burst into loud laughter.

He took a few steps closer to the door, but attended (nervously) to Prince Simon when he spoke:

"At least they didn't invite you to her funeral!" the man said, his laughter easing to chuckles. "Or perhaps that invitation is coming tomorrow. Do you think?"

"Simon, stop teasing!" Prince Tyrillius exclaimed, glancing at the anxious messenger who was practically squirming underneath the door in his desperate desire to escape. "The boy doesn't know what you're talking about. You're making him nervous."

Prince Tyrillius turned apologetically to Diggory, ignoring his brother's continued amusement.

"Of course I would be honored to attend. When is it?"

"The twenty-fifth, your highness," Diggory said after moment; in his trauma, he'd nearly forgotten the date.

"Only ten days' warning?" Prince Simon remarked. "That's odd. I wonder if you were an afterthought."

"Eleven days," Prince Tyrillius corrected automatically, reaching out a hand for the invitation.

Diggory gleefully surrendered the decorated paper to the prince and bowed, waiting impatiently to be dismissed. It seemed to take an age for the prince to open the envelope and unfold the paper.

"Thank you for the message, lad," Prince Tyrillius finally said, after looking over the invitation. "You are free to return to Folall, or stay a night in the palace, if you wish. Bevan can show you to a spare room in the servant's quarters."

"Thank you, your highness," Diggory said quickly and bowed again before escaping the room, almost plowing over the unfortunate Bevan who had been waiting outside.

The prince barely noticed the messenger's haste. He was busy frowning at the paper he held in his hands. It was not a frown of anger, however; the prince had a habit of frowning deeply whenever he was looking closely at things. This may have been in order to aid his ability to squint at the object and thus focus his vision on it better — his mother had suggested reading spectacles to replace this action, but Tyrillius found the idea repulsive and refused to hear any more of it.

The invitation was currently under scrutiny because he thought he detected a smudge in the calligrapher's ink. After much frowning, he found that he was right — the smudge was almost imperceptible, cleverly disguised by the surrounding ornamentation, but it was there. Tyrillius only noticed it because he had taken an interest in the arts of writing as a young boy, and followed this study through his adult life. He became particularly fond of the elegant calligraphy through his research, with its clean sweeps and twirls of effortless ornamentation. As he had looked at hundreds of words written in the style, the tiny flaw stood out to him very clearly, despite his slight vision impairment.

"Do you think this was her mother's idea?" Simon asked.

"What, the ball?" Tyrillius asked with some incredulity, resting the invitation on the arm of the chair and turning back to his brother.

"No, no," Simon said, laughing again. "Her mother's constitution is far too nervous to suggest any activity that a spindle could be smuggled into."

Indeed, that was the reason the princess didn't join her parents during the Royal Parade every autumn, nor was she allowed to attend events hosted anywhere but the royal castle of Folall.

"Clearly," Tyrillius agreed. "The ball was Amethyst's idea; I'd wager my best dog on that."

"I wouldn't be foolish enough to take that bet," Simon said. "What I meant, however, was to question whether inviting _you _to the ball was Queen Opal's idea, do you think?"

Tyrillius hadn't thought of that when he accepted the invitation; he assumed that the princess wanted to further familiarize herself with him on this occasion, as she had tried to make an effort to do in the past, in preparation for their eventual (assumed) engagement. He found her quite the tolerable individual, though perhaps a bit petty and naive, and had no qualms about getting to know her better and perhaps marrying her one day. She was exceedingly easy on the eyes, as well, and that may have had a bit of an influence on his pleasant thoughts. The idea that her mother had forced her hand on the matter, however, did not sit well in the prince's mind.

He frowned and looked at the invitation again, as if that would clear up the issue at once.

"Come on, brother," Simon said, holding out his hand for the invitation, which Tyrillius relinquished. "You know Father and Queen Opal have designs for you and the princess."

"Obviously," Tyrillius said, waving the statement away carelessly. "But if Princess Amethyst did not invite me of her own volition, it could be quite the dull party. I'm not much acquainted with Folalli nobility. I believe I last saw the princess around Christmastide, and I had a wretched time. No one knew who I was, and I was familiar with _them_ to an equal degree."

Prince Tyrillius was not merely saying all of this to complain, although that might have been a secondary motive. Prince Simon had made it a point to know the Folalli nobility almost as well as he knew the Syndocian nobility, in case Tyrillius ever did marry Princess Amethyst and the two countries were unavoidably bound. Prince Tyrillius, though he would be the one marrying Amethyst, had never viewed the grueling task of memorization and socialization in quite the same light as his brother. He was far more apt to memorize geography or history.

(He actually could trace the country of Folall back to its roots in the Pre-Herodian age, which was a feat since the country changed names and appearance remarkably in the Herodian and Post-Euclidian age. But for all that, he simply could not remember whether the wife of Duke Osbourne was named Diana or Donna.)

Tyrillius, then, was bringing up his woeful relationships with the Folalli nobility in hopes that his brother might take pity on him and join him at the ball. Primarily, Simon's company would provide to stave off boredom if it was impending. It would also, however, be convenient to have Simon there so that he could call people by their names confidently, as they were provided by Simon, instead of trying to avoid using their names altogether.

Simon saw through this plot immediately but, as he did enjoy the company of Folalli nobility and his brother, he let out a sigh and agreed to join Tyrillius at the party.

"But one day, you're going to have to do your own socializing, you know," Simon warned, waving the invitation in an accusing manner. "When I marry Rachael in a few years and receive the crown, I'll be busy with Syndocian business."

"You're a peach, Simon," Tyrillius just said, grinning.

He let his brother's warning roll off his back as he always did; "one day" would come in time, he knew, but that time was not now, and that was all that really mattered at present. His brother would join him at the ball, which would ensure that he would have a grand time, regardless of the Princess Amethyst and her possible hesitation toward him.

"Now," Tyrillius added, as an afterthought, "don't forget to add this to your agenda. I don't want to find out the day before that you're going to Lady Thoreau's garden party or something."

"Of course not," Simon said lazily. "Although I will have to send a note to Lord Gallant with my apologies. I was invited to his dinner party, and I did agree to attend. Though there will be so many other lively young people there, I doubt the old master will miss me."

"What a pity, to miss Lord Gallant's party," Tyrillius said with mock sympathy.

"Now, you," Simon said, standing to leave and shaking the invitation at his brother once more; he seemed to have forgotten he was holding it. "I rather like the old man, you know. He's got wonderful stories."

"Or rather, one wonderful story," Tyrillius corrected, hunching over and adopting a gruff voice — which was actually a fair imitation of Lord Gallant's husky drawl: "When I was about as old as you, sixteen, maybe seventeen, there was an attack from the north, and I defended my entire house with naught but a broken chair leg and a kitchen knife!"

"Oh, come off it," Simon scolded, but he had to laugh as he paused at the door. "So, he retells a few stories. The man is approaching ninety years old; you must give him some allowance."

Tyrillius just waved him out of the room, plucking the invitation from Simon's fingers as he did.

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><p>Earl and Amethyst met at nine o'clock the next morning, as promised. This time, there were no embarrassing escapades involved; Earl did not even venture to the third floor until he was sure the princess was well dressed and ready to receive male company. They accomplished as much the second day as they did on the first, though there was still a great deal to be done. As a result, they met at nine o'clock the next morning as well, and every morning thence until the day before the ball was to be held. It was that morning that they found themselves quite out of decorations to order, food to arrange, and seating arrangements to ponder.<p>

In those twelve days Earl proved definitively, to anyone who might have doubted his abilities, why he was chosen as the Royal Event Coordinator. Though he was young, prone to fumbling words in ungraceful situations, and presumably inexperienced in his trade, his way about dealing with Amethyst in her moods was nothing short of a miracle. (In fact, the MacLeans were currently whispering about whether or not his mother was a witch, and if he had not simply cast a spell over Amethyst to make her agreeable.)

Additionally, his level-headedness and simple good sense had made the ball possible; if the princess had been left to her own devices, everything would have been a beautifully intricate disaster of grand proportions. His grasp of reality complemented her creativity wonderfully, and between the two of them, they thought of everything necessary to make this the best party of the year.

When, on that day before the ball, the two met as usual at nine o'clock, they soon found this to be the case. They could not think of a single thing left unfinished. So, as a celebration, the pair decided to taste-test the birthday cake, to be sure it was up to the standard they had set for the grumpy Chief Baker in the castle kitchens.

The old man, who looked rather like the turtles who liked to sun themselves on the rocks around the castle pond, was displeased that they doubted his skill. Nonetheless, he baked them a small cake of the same recipe he would use for the larger one at the party, though he did so with many muttered words and nasty looks.

The young pair pretended not to notice him whatsoever, and they soon began to pester the Master of the Drinks to stir up a small batch up the punch she would be serving at the ball. The Master of Drinks was far more eager to please the two than the Chief Baker apparently was, for she mixed a bowl of the punch without a word of complaint, and served it to them in crystal goblets herself.

In actuality, the Master of the Drinks was none other than Natalie MacLean, and the woman was very keen to see the hotly-discussed pair with her own eyes. It was for this reason that she served them so willingly — in hopes that they might stay in the kitchens and discuss some interesting tidbit of information if she were pleasant enough. But, her hopes were dashed; when the small cake was done, Earl and Amethyst took it up to the Secondary Conference Room themselves, without spilling a drop of information that was at all interesting to Natalie.

(Although they did spill a few drops of punch as they left, which Natalie had to mop up before the red, sticky liquid was tracked everywhere.)

They had discussed the shades of green to be present at the ball, and whether or not the ice sculptures would be done in time, but none of that interested Natalie. She would be able to see all of that for herself tomorrow. She wanted a piece of information that would rival the stories Hubert had been reeling out about his observance of the two.

Natalie sighed and began preparing the lemon-water for the Royal Luncheon, wondering when better luck would come her way.

Amethyst and Earl, however, were untroubled by such weighty problems; they were enjoying their cake and punch with much laughter and general gaiety.

"Thank you so much for all your help," Amethyst said through a mouthful of red velvet cake. "I think it goes without saying that I could never have done this without you. You were a sensation."

Despite the bad reputation the princess often earned among the servants for her impatience and absurd demands, Princess Amethyst was not as self-absorbed as she first appeared. She was well aware of her personal flaws, though she would scarcely admit them to anyone. She knew, for instance, that no matter how fiercely she argued for her dramatic ideas, they were all-too-often unattainable and impractical. She also knew that she lost her head too often at things that should not annoy her, like word games and mathematics, and not nearly often enough at things that should offend her sensibilities, like immodesty or personal insults.

Amethyst knew that she would have never been able to orchestrate such a complicated event as a ball, even if she were given an entire year to see the project through to completion. She would never admit this to her mother, or even Renee, yet the bald statement found its way out of her lips in front of Earl before she quite understood the implications behind it.

If Earl was surprised by this confession, he didn't show it. He merely blushed, as he did at every compliment, and shrugged with an easy smile before replying:

"It was nothing. I just did what you wanted."

This was not altogether a lie. Earl had always managed to subtly guide Amethyst into a clearer vein of thinking before he actually did anything, and so he really was just doing what she wanted. After he'd made her desires attainable, that is. He thought he had been doing this without her full awareness of the situation, but her next statement showed her to be a more shrewd individual than he had reckoned her to be.

"Nonsense," she said flatly. She knew he had been indispensable to the process, and she refused to let him sell himself short. "I'm useless at practical things, and you know it. Don't argue!"

Her lifted hand forestalled any polite argument he might have given. He was relieved; he didn't much like the practice of lying to royalty, but it seemed to be in the job description for a good servant these days. Their tempers were so easily flared at an ill comment — or the lack of a kind one. Amethyst's lack of tolerance for this institution was a welcome relief. Still, he did not want to try his luck.

"Perhaps," he conceded evasively, then chuckled as he remembered one of her most impractical ideas.

She had a grandiose plan to balance candles on ropes all across the ballroom. The simple suggestion that candles do not balance on string, and the additional suggestion that pairing string and fire was not usually wise, did nothing to hamper her fervor. Thankfully, Earl had managed to steer her enthusiasm for creative lighting in a different direction entirely; the ballroom was to be lit with candles encased in square lanterns of colored glass that would be hung, safely, from the chains already present in the room.

"I can't wait to see it all unfold," Amethyst said dreamily, taking a drink of punch. "Mm, this punch is delicious. You were right about the limes. They add a nice … zip."

"It will definitely be a night to remember," Earl said, taking his last bite of cake. "You'll have to tell me how it goes."

He blushed a little at his forwardness — he had spoken without consideration that he was talking to the _princess_, which was probably due to her stubborn refusal to allow him to address her properly. He quickly busied himself with his punch, remarking as well on its tastiness. The princess was not to be distracted, however.

"Whatever do you mean?" she accused. "Are you not going to be there? Where are you going?"

The idea that Earl would not be present at the ball they had labored so many hours in creating was preposterous. And it stung a bit like a betrayal; after all, it had been the _two _of them working on it. Amethyst saw no logic in Earl being anyplace else.

"I'll be around the palace, of course," Earl said hastily, meeting her eyes for a brief moment, then looking away. His expression was slightly confused; he didn't know why she sounded angry. "I might be in the kitchens, ensuring everything is ready at the proper time, or giving the entertainers their cues to enter."

"I'm sure someone else will be able to handle all of that," Amethyst said dismissively, though her brow was still furrowed. There was only one explanation for his not being there, from her view, and she was going to get to the bottom of it. "Why do you not want to come?"

"It's not that I don't _want_ to come," Earl said quickly, then paused, glancing at Amethyst again with some consternation.

He thought the reason was painfully obvious. If he didn't know Amethyst better, he might think she was playing some sort of cruel joke on him. As it was, however, she looked far too baffled to be involved in any sort of plot. Earl still didn't quite believe that she was asking these questions to him in earnest, however.

"Then why aren't you coming!" Amethyst cried impatiently.

She could only be puzzled for so long before she became frustrated, and Earl's cagey looks were doing nothing to help the situation. He looked as if she were going to bite him at any moment, and she didn't appreciate that sentiment being harbored against her person when she was only asking an innocent question.

"Your majesty—Amethyst," Earl corrected hastily, then began to speak more slowly, choosing each word carefully. "This party is a celebration of a princess' birthday, designed and organized for the pleasure of royalty and nobility. I am a servant; surely, I will satisfy myself with attending the festival in town that is being held in your honor next week."

Amethyst sat back in her chair as Earl's hesitating explanation hit her. She had completely forgotten one crucial part of their relationship, one that Earl had clearly kept in mind the whole time: He was a servant. His manners were so fine and his decorum so untouchable that she had entirely forgotten his lowly position. Because such important titles and jobs as the Royal Event Coordinator were given to those of noble rank as often as they were to those with no rank at all, it was an easy thing to forget.

And, of course, his name was Earl.

The princess, however she was momentarily set back, would not be discouraged. She took her new tack with alacrity and vigor, as if it had been her original point all along.

"Well, never mind that," Amethyst said, leaning forward again. "It's my party, isn't it? And I'm inviting you."

Earl looked up at her with surprise, perhaps a bit flattered, but still torn. Amethyst pressed the point with a teasing grin.

"I'll track down the calligraphers and make them write you an invitation. Then it would be rude to refuse!"

"Amethyst, be reasonable," Earl said, and though his voice was weak, his words wiped the teasing smile off her face in an instant.

He had never been so direct when she was being silly or outlandish. He was always patient, giving a gratifying smile or laugh before he steered her in a more appropriate direction. His deflating command, given in such a serious — though quiet — tone had a profound effect upon her. She had the sudden, unrelated revelation that Earl was probably four or five years older than she; his grave face certainly reflected it now.

"I would be the only servant there. No one would know who I was," he continued.

"I would know," Amethyst argued meekly, but she knew he was right. She had been foolish to ask.

"It's not my place," Earl said, and his quiet voice carried a tone of finality. He paused for a moment, then his cheeks pinked again as he realized he had all but denied the command of his sovereign. "I'll go check on the decorations," he said, standing.

"Alright," Amethyst replied, seizing the change of subject with relief. "Thank you, again, for all your help. I do hope to see you popping in every once in a while."

"You can count on that," Earl said, sparing her a rare smile, then blushing again.

"Until tomorrow, then," Amethyst said, also standing to leave.

"Until tomorrow," he said with a bow, and he held the door open for her to pass.

* * *

><p><strong>Review Prompt Of The Day: Is the style too jumpy for you? What do you think?<strong>

Starfool**: Poor Diggory indeed... or were you saying "poor boy" about Earl? Either is probably accurate, haha! And yes, crafty Hubert. Gotta love him. -grin- The villainess? Hmm, what can I say about her without spoiling... let's just say, she's not your typical villain. I'm so helpful, aren't I? -cheeky smile-  
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Delia****: I do love Earl quite a bit myself. He's just so cute and awkward. I want to hug him! -laugh- Ah, yes, princes do tend to get in the way of everyone's plans, don't they? So intrusive, those men. -shakes head- I'm glad you like the narration! It's really hard for me to write; my brain keeps going, "Hey, that's not necessary information! Why are you talking about that?" It's quite aggravating. _ But I enjoy the final outcome for the most part, so I'll do my best to keep it up. Let me know if it starts getting tiring - I'm more than willing to edit or tweak if you think it's getting to be too much or too random. I'm sure you'll be able to figure out the plot if you think hard enough, since you know the prompt you gave me. -grin- Just keep thinking about it. Aww, you dislike Tyrillius already? The poor boy never had a chance with you, did he? -chuckle- I'm truly sorry it took so long to update. I'm working on the story today, so hopefully I can have some chapters stockpiled for the next few weeks and this won't happen again. :-(  
><strong>**

Captain******: Party planning would be a ton of fun, as long as you worked with nice people or had a really tough skin, I think. I could never do it; I'm far too easily upset, and I'm too empathetic for my own good. XD But Earl enjoys it, and more power to him, haha. I kind of want him to help me plan my wedding. He would make everything so much less stressful. -wistful sigh- I also feel the same way about puzzles as Amethyst does - and apparently you do too. Ha! I should hope you're a well-rounded person. Or, at least, a believable and realistic one. Seeing as you ARE real. -shifty eyes- The idea that a country solves problems by yelling about them is highly amusing to me as well - I want to be present for a war meeting. It would be terrifying to watch, and then everyone would be perfectly content and happy afterward. Ahaha. Anyhow, yes. Masques are great fun; I've always wanted to write one!  
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daring2dream********: I KNOW. DELICIOUS. 8D I understand about growing up - it is a real time-suck sometimes. x.x I'm doing alright. I'm really busy too, trying to plan my wedding (crazy!) and carry on the rest of my life. Yikes! That's part of the reason it's taken so long to update - I've been organizing and making and designing a bunch of wedding things in my free time. Whew. I'm glad to keep you entertained! Haha. Good observation about Earl; there probably is more to him than meets the eye. -smile- Amethyst certainly is a bit scary! I'm glad you think she's believable, though. XD Please don't feel compelled to call him by his full name - I always call him Ty in my head and in my notes. I think he likes the nickname. -smile- I'm having a lot of fun with the gossipy servants - I think I'm sort of parodizing the gossipy people I know in real life, haha. Man, FIREWORKS. I wonder if those are invented yet. Hmmm... I agree! Someone needs to plan me this party! Where's Earl when you need him? XD As for your P.S. Yes, Ame is certainly an interesting character, isn't she? I think part of it is just _her _coming through with or without my knowledge, but I'm doing at least a little of it on purpose. :-P********

Faylinn**: Earl is lovely. At this point in the story, he is probably my favorite too. Can't help but love the awkwardness! I really want him to plan my parties too. He cold save me SO much headache. And then he could hassle things out with stores and vendors and get me good deals and then sip tea with me and discuss life. WHY IS HE NOT ON MY COUCH RIGHT NOW WITH TEA. Ahem, sorry. Wedding planning stress is starting to get to me, I think. O.o Haha! You _would_ like the floating ice sculptures. You wouldn't even be able to see them, really, though. And they would just sort of walk by them and that would be it. Not to mention a lack of climate control. :-P But anyway. I hope you found Tyrillius as interesting as you were hoping.**

Lady Thorne**: I'm glad you're enjoying it! Earl is a good choice, I think. -smile- I like him a lot. And yes, the MacLeans are ridiculous - they make me laugh as I write them! Silly creatures.**

Clar**: 1: The spectrum of comments I've been getting about Amethyst amuses me greatly. Everything from scary to cute - haha! But I have to agree. She is rather cute, isn't she? I don't know what Benny hill is (sorry) but I'll take that as a compliment! XD 2: I enjoy writing the titles. They are so pompous in Folall, thinking they're so proper and important. It's all rather silly, because they're small and not really very important in the scheme of the whole continent, but hey! Who am I to trample on their grandeur? XD Hmm, the Emerald City? That's an interesting observation. I think poor Earl is just jumpy in general - a nervous personality or something. But Amethyst's being a princess certainly doesn't help that at all. XD And as you saw in this chapter, he's around 20-21. Older than her, by a respectable bit. Ha, I'm sure the minor characters appreciate your not choosing a favorite. The MacLeans are all fawning and pretending you love them best, the great sillies.**

Ithilwen**: I'm glad you're enjoying it - especially the style, which I'm still a bit nervous about. Thanks for the nudge to update - you made me heave a great sigh and sit down to get this chapter ready. -smile- The princes... Italian or German? Hmm. ;-) And, the party is coming soon. Never fear. -grin-**

**Reviewers get a chocolate cupcake with a filling and frosting of your choice!**


	4. Chapter 4

**23 . 1 . 12**

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><p>The carriage ride from the Syndocian palace to the Folalli one took nearly two days, but the princes were well-accustomed to such traveling. Syndoc was predominantly rocky and rough, except on the banks of the rivers and lakes that were scattered throughout the small country. Traveling by carriage between cities and towns often took a day or more, due to the distance between habitations and the uneven terrain, even along the roads. The royal family drove around to the major cities of Syndoc at least twice a year, to ensure that the mayors were being honest and applying the laws fairly, and to give audience to their citizens' complaints and problems. This journey took the better part of two months, even given the country's modest size.<p>

The worst part of the journey to Folall, however, was the spiteful Pry desert. While the particularly rough terrain was only an annoyance to a messenger on horseback, it was potentially catastrophic to a carriage — as if the choking heat were not enough to discourage travelers from crossing the expanse. The carriages in Syndoc were made to handle such wear and tear as the Pry offered, since merchants often chose to traverse the desert in order to sell such prizes as fine thread and cloth to Folall at a rich price. Everything about the carriages was tough and solid, from the frame to the axle to the wheels. With proper upkeep, a quality carriage in Syndoc would easily be able to handle such obstacles as uneven roads, steep slopes, shallow pits, and the occasional hefty rock.

It was for this reason that everyone in the royal carriage was shocked when, after hitting a peculiarly rough patch of road, the wheel simply rolled off. This sent the inhabitants lurching forward (in the middle of their discussion about Duke Worthington and whether he had two or three children) and the unfortunate footman sprawling unceremoniously to the ground. His name was Grover, and he had been trying to stay under the shade of the carriage's awning in order to escape the brutal sun before the accident occurred. He was so surprised at this that he merely lay on the ground for a moment, getting up with a cry only when the hot dust began to burn him. It was this cry that brought the driver out of his startled reverie, calling to the princes:

"Your highnesses! The wheel's come off!"

While this statement was not the most helpful or remarkable one that could have been made, it did serve to draw the brothers' attention away from their incredulous thoughts about the impossibility of the event that had just occurred.

"Thank you, Randall!" Simon called back, standing uncertainly on the now-angled floor. "I think we might have guessed that," he added, low enough that only Tyrillius would be able to hear him.

His brother stifled a chuckle and, being already by the door, stepped from the tilted carriage to the much more sturdy ground. Simon soon joined him and they, together with the footman, manservants, and Randall, began to survey the damage done to the royal carriage. One of the manservants was chasing after the wheel, which was happily rolling down the rocky slope back in the direction of Syndoc; it appeared to be rolling splendidly and did not look damaged at all. The axle also seemed to be mostly undamaged, except for a few hairline fractures and dents in the hollow iron bar.

"This should hold until we get to the castle," Randall said, kneeling down to take a closer look and removing a pair of thin spectacles from his pocket. "Provided we can get the wheel back on, that is."

Randall had been a carriage driver since he was younger than Prince Tyrillius, transporting the fortunate folk to and from important events or simply on long visits to other parts of Syndoc. He had driven carriages in all states of disrepair and outright brokenness in his career, and had even once driven a carriage with a broken axle, if the stories were to be believed. He was then, understandably, the source of information on carriage repairs and their severity. The manservants knew this, and they were very grateful that Randall had been appointed for this journey; he had narrowly been selected over Frank, the Head Driver.

"Do I take that to mean that we won't be able to return to Syndoc on it?" Tyrillius asked.

Randall left off tapping the axle — checking it for weaknesses — to look closely at the young prince. After coming to the conclusion that he was being serious, Randall pocketed his spectacles and stood with a tired grunt. He was beginning to feel every one of his forty-seven years.

"Most definitely not, your highness," he finally said. "We'll need a new axle at least. Possibly a new wheel. These cracks won't hold the carriage much further than Goreth; we'll have to get it reinforced there before we can travel on."

The princes looked at each other with resignation. Goreth was the town on the Follali side of the desert — at ten miles away, it was as close to the Pry as the citizens would dare settle, and it was still ravaged with dust storms in the summer. It was impossible to grow all but the most hardy of crops, but the town was founded expressly to make its living on the the Syndocian merchants traveling through. It did a fair job of that, as everything was overpriced and of poor quality. An axle fixed there would cost a pretty penny, and would probably (as Randall was hinting) only last until the royal blacksmith of Folall could work on it.

"I'm not sure we'll be able to get the wheel back on, either," he said, bending down again to squint at the axle. He then straightened and shouted after the manservant who had gone chasing after the wheel. "Jason! Stop gallivanting all over creation! We're roasting in the sun while you trot around like a babe with a wagon!"

"I couldn't catch it!" Jason protested, bobbing quick, awkward bows to the princes as he approached, trying to steady the large carriage wheel. "I don't know how _it _managed to keep rolling over this ground when the carriage apparently couldn't."

Everyone glanced back at the road, which looked perfectly harmless in the afternoon sun. There wasn't a boulder — or even a decently sized stone — to blame for their misfortune; the wheel appeared to have broken free of its own accord.

"The wheel seems to be undamaged," Randall commented, bringing their attention back to the more immediate concern.

Randall soon declared the wheel fit to carry the weight of the carriage, though it too had some fractures around the hub. The chief task, then, became divining how to reattach the wheel to the axle. Since there was nothing large or strong enough to prop the carriage against while the men put the wheel on, it was eventually decided that the carriage would have to be unloaded and held balanced by pairs of men.

This was a long and frustrating task. Deserts are not known for their charming, cool breezes or convenient bouts of cloud-given shade, and the Pry desert was no exception. Before the task was even begun, sweat was beading on every forehead, and it was not long before the men stripped to the waist in an attempt to cool themselves — to little avail.

The task was made more frustrating by the fact that the carriage, even when empty, was not of a negligible weight. The iron frame, while inarguably strong, was more than two or three men could support for very long, so the process was constantly interrupted by the changing hands.

Simon and Tyrillius, seeing that every able hand was needed, quickly lent themselves to the job of bracing the carriage, after some protests from Randall and the others — but still an hour passed with no improvement to their situation. The wheel had fit snugly onto the axle before, but the slight bends in the axle from its impact with the ground had altered its shape just enough that the wheel had to be coaxed on slowly, and every shift in the carriage's weight set the process a step back.

"Hold it a bit more steady," Randall grunted irritably as the axle jerked out of the center of the wheelonce more.

"We're holding it as steady as we can, Randy," the footman snapped. "Our arms are shaking from the weight of it."

"Hold it, hold it, steady," Randall said, not hearing the man's reply as he began to wedge the wheel onto the axle. "Almost—heaven blast it!" he shouted suddenly, dropping the wheel and rubbing furiously at his eye.

"What's the matter?" Simon called, running toward Randall and looking for a bug or animal that might have bitten him.

"Dust and sweat running through my eye like a river—!" Randall exclaimed, blinking and squinting as he succeeded to probably rub more dust into his eye.

"I guess we're back to the beginning again," Tyrillius said longsufferingly, shifting the weight of the carriage in his arms and groaning quietly with the weight. He wasn't a weakling, but neither were his arms used to this caliber of physical exertion.

At this remark, everyone — especially the footman who was holding the other side of the carriage with Tyrillius to keep the axle from bending further by hitting the ground again — looked bleak at the idea of continuing this fruitless endeavor. The sun, as if sensing their despair, took this opportunity to shine brighter and more cheerily, causing those men who had already begun to redden in the sun to wince in discomfort. The dust, accordingly, found it fitting to stir around their feet and float up to their noses, to choke and blind them as much as it was able. The party was really a sorry sight: red-skinned, streaked with dust and sweat, and looking as hopeless as the passengers on a sinking ship.

Then, Tyrillius heard a sound that lifted his spirits more than anything could have at that moment — the stamping of horses' hooves and crunching of gravel under wheels.

"Someone's coming!" he cried, and everyone else looked up from their muttered discussions in surprise.

The desert road was rarely traveled on; they had not expected a passer-by to come upon them until the next day at the earliest. Nevertheless, cresting the smooth slope was a worn farmer's wagon, pulled by two tired-looking horses. Driving the cart was a hunched individual of indeterminate gender, being heavily cloaked to block the sun's vicious rays.

"Heyo!" called Randall, waving an arm to attract the driver's attention.

The person jumped a little, startled from some thought, and turned to them. Upon seeing the carriage wheel lying sadly upon the ground at Randall's feet, the driver reigned the horses in with a soft, "Whoah, ssh," and pushed back the hood of the cloak.

Grey, frizzled hair was escaping the braid the old woman had tied the majority of her hair into, but her face appeared deceptively smooth and young.

Tyrillius decided that she must be from the mountains, remembering the visiting nobility from the mountainous countries; they always appeared quite young, even when their hair was grey and their knuckles swollen and stiff.

"Did your wheel just fall off, or did your axle break?" the woman asked, dismissing any formalities and descending carefully from her cart to walk over to them.

"The axle's a bit damaged, but we mostly can't get the wheel on," Randall said, his face showing evident dismay that the driver was an old woman instead of someone younger or stronger.

"That just came right off," the woman observed with some surprise. "What did you hit?"

"Nothing at all. Just this patch of road right here," Simon answered, gesturing at the road directly behind the carriage as he shrugged into his shirt once more. The other men took their cue from him and regretfully began clothing themselves.

"How strange," the woman said. She kept looking at the spot as if it would explain itself, but when no defense was given, she spoke again. "Well, I'm heading to Folall, and I'd be happy to give you a lift. I might even be able to tow your carriage, if you have some rope."

She sounded strangely apologetic, Tyrillius thought, though he was mostly distracted by handing off the thankless task to the next man in line and shaking out his sore arms. He wandered closer to the conversation, pulling his shirt over his head and taking a position next to Simon.

"We would greatly appreciate it," Simon said thankfully. "My brother and I are expected at the Folalli palace this evening, and we will probably be late as it is."

The woman looked at Simon with a slight frown, like she was thinking, then glanced at Tyrillius. Her frown deepened, but it was quickly covered by her hair as she dipped into a quick, surprisingly graceful curtsy.

"Your highnesses," she said reverently. "Forgive me for not recognizing you at once. I intend only the greatest respect."

"You have nothing to be embarrassed about," Tyrillius said, extending a hand to allow her to straighten her posture once more.

The old woman took his hand and kissed the knuckles, surprising both princes and convincing Tyrillius that his suspicion was correct: she was definitely from the mountains. The custom of kissing the knuckles of monarchs had fallen out of tradition years ago in the more civilized portions of Syndoc. The only place the behavior persisted was on the outskirts of society — in the foothills of the mountains to the north. Although, her dialect did not betray such a heritage; her words were careful and untainted by the northern accent common to those who lived so close to the border.

"It is my honor to serve you," the woman said, releasing his hand and standing. The frown had all but disappeared from her face — presumably, it was shock and embarrassment at meeting the crown princes of Syndoc on a desert road, sweaty and shirtless, which afforded her the scowl.

"It's our good fortune to have met you," Simon replied. "I don't know what we would have done otherwise. Heaven knows what we were doing wasn't working."

"Fate smiles on us today," the woman said simply. "If you would hook your carriage to my wagon, we can be on our way. I think I have some rope in the back of the wagon, if you don't have any."

"More is always better," Randall said, and the men quickly set to the task of attaching the carriage to the woman's cart.

It didn't take long for the manservants to utilize the ropes found in both vehicles to tie the carriage to the wagon and harness all four horses to the front of the procession. They were soon on their way out of the desert, much to everyone's relief.

Since there was no covered place for the princes to sit in the cart, they joined the woman in the front — in the only seats available. The rest of the men filled in around the various crates and barrels in the back of the wagon, holding onto the sides for support and talking amongst themselves.

"What's your business at the castle? If you don't mind my asking, that is," the woman asked after a few minutes of silence.

She didn't seem particularly interested in the answer; it sounded like she was just trying to start a conversation to pass the time.

"The princess' birthday celebration," Tyrillius replied, looking regretfully at the sun, which was approaching its climax with gleeful speed.

"Indeed? Princess Amethyst?" the woman said, looking over at him momentarily before turning back to the road. She looked curious now.

"The one and only," Simon said briefly. He was watching the town slowly materialize in the hazy distance and mentally urging it to arrive faster.

"She turns 16 this year, doesn't she?" the woman asked, then clucked at the horses.

"She does," Tyrillius replied, wondering how much the woman knew of Folalli history — and where she was from exactly.

Since they were talking, he decided to ask. Then he realized he didn't know her name, either. That was bad manners on the princes' part; it was important to know the name of every person you were talking to, whether peasant or noble. (It showed that the throne cared for everyone, which was — of course — true, though sometimes it was hard to show that precisely.) He was actually surprised Simon hadn't asked her name, since socialization and name-remembering was more along the lines of his nature, but a quick look at his brother confirmed that the man was too anxious about their arrival in town to be much concerned for manners.

"What's your name, by the way?" Tyrillius asked her.

"Marthe."

"Where are you from?" he continued, hoping he wasn't sounding rude. "You know of my brother and I, and also Princess Amethyst…"

"Northern Syndoc, in the foothills of the mountains," she said, seeming not at all offended. "A little town called Feoria. Do you know it?"

"I'm afraid I don't," Tyrillius said, racking his memory uselessly.

Even if he had known the name at some point, he would have forgotten it instantly. Names of places settled in his mind with the same tenaciousness as names of people — that is to say, they migrated to more suitable lodging with frightening rapidity.

"It's all right," Marthe said, seeming to notice his discomfort. "I only moved there a few years ago, anyway. Before that, I was closer to river."

That explained her lack of accent, Tyrillius thought. The people of the river towns were bombarded with so many accents from passing travelers that they maintained a sort of homogeneous way of speaking.

"Why did you move?" Tyrillius said, asking the first question that came to mind.

He rather enjoyed the woman's company, though she was quick with her answers and kept her eyes mostly to the road. He supposed she had seen too many things in her life on the river to be astounded by royalty for very long.

"Oh, business," she said lightly. "I couldn't run everything myself after my husband died, so I moved in with my daughter in Feoria."

Time passed in this way, with scattered conversation and pleasant silences, until they arrived at the town; the ride seemed surprisingly short, probably because of the distraction of Marthe's pleasant, but not intrusive, company. Marthe firmly refused to leave until they found a smith to fix their carriage, although that took almost an hour, and waved off any suggestion of reimbursement for her trouble. Tyrillius was about to insist that she take a few _latel_ at least, but she managed to slip away before he returned from the smith. None of the manservants would admit to letting — or even seeing — her leave, and Tyrillius was not pleased.

"She was a weird old lady who just wanted to be nice," Simon said in explanation and shrugged at his brother's annoyance.

They were soon on their way to the Folalli palace, and Randall estimated that they would actually make it to the ball with a scant half hour to spare. Their original itinerary allowed a two-hour rest before the ball, but the princes were pleased at this point to have any time at all. Nonetheless, they hired a swift messenger to ride ahead of them and announce their delay, in case they could not make it on time for any other reason. A half hour is an easy amount of time to lose when traveling.

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><p><strong>Review Prompt Of The Day: Who would win in a wrestling match between Simon and Tyrillius?<br>**

Captain****: Har har. You're hilarious. :-P If it helps, I'm impatient for the ball, too. Unfortunately, there are other things which must occur first. -shifty eyes- Fun fact: I originally had the conversation between Earl and Amethyst being way more dramatic. Imagine that, if you will. XD Okay, as long as you're not getting lost, the style probably isn't too bad, haha. You'll have to see about those side characters... hmm... What do you think of Tyrillius now? Still ambivalent? Ah! I'm excited too. I can't wait. For more than just the obvious reasons. XD****

Miss Papillon**: I'm glad you're liking Earl and Amethyst! They're really fun to write, both separately and together. Their personalities work so interestingly together, I think, but they're both quite independent. I can see why you'd like them either as a couple or friends! As for Tyrillius and Amethyst, you'll just have to see! -grin-**

Fay**: Well, I shall alleviate one of those problems by updating in a more expedient fashion! So here you are. Amiable. That's a good word for Simon and Tyrillius. XD Nah, third chapter is a great time to start shipping people. I mean, you never know. It's not like most books and TV shows give you a red herring at the beginning of the book and then change everything later. You're probably safe. :-P**

EVA**: 1: That's alright. I figured you were busy. No worries. :-) Haha, oh I know that teenagers can whine. Believe me. O.o This story bends reality more than my other stories do, in more ways than that. XD Yes, I'm aware that it's not exactly possible to do what she did - but there's the bending-reality-bit again. That sort of exaggeration/irony/tongue-in-cheek narration is going to keep happening through the story. I'll have to ask you to suspend your belief a little more than usual as you read this story. You have so many interesting theories on Tyrillius, haha! I'll have to just wait and see what you think of him as you keep reading. I'm glad Amethyst is likable and not super annoying. She gets on my nerves sometimes, but she means well, I think. .o 2: I thought you had reviewed the first chapter, but I don't mind another review. -grin and wink- I'm so glad you're liking Earl... and my characters in general! I write my stories for the characters, and apparently that shows. Haha! (I do enjoy me some spinoffs, too. Heh. Ssshh. XD) It's so nice to have an omniscient third person narrator. I like being able to dip into the minds of everyone and see everything that's going on. It helps the tongue-in-cheek/slightly-unbelievable style, too, I think. She is pretty controlling, but also imaginative. I imagine a lot of that time was her rambling on and on about some grandiose idea she had, and Earl talking her out of it in such a way that she didn't feel like he was talking her out of it. Which is very time-consuming. And she also really enjoys his company... and the two of those things together might explain better why she didn't lose patience with an all-day meeting. To her, it didn't seem much like a meeting. Yes, Amethyst's party is ruining everyone's schedule. But what can you do? She is the princess! And it's her 16th birthday, which everyone knows means- well, you know. The other messengers really were quite mean to Diggory. But it was probably good for his character. XD I'm glad you liked Tyrillius! Very interesting observations there. :-) As for Bevan? You'll have to see. ;-)**

**Reviewers get a slice of sample wedding cake! (There's too much for just me. Flavor of your choice! The frosting will have to be white and purple, though. -grin-)**


	5. Chapter 5

**3 . 3 . 12**

**Sorry to disappear again – life is getting busy busy around here! Now I'm sequestered in a cute little coffee shop, and I'm not going to leave until I get this chapter posted. /determined**

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><p>Amethyst didn't see Earl at all on the day of the ball, though she was watching for him with a mixture of anticipation and dread. It seemed he was avoiding her as well, which she was thankful for after their embarrassing conversation the day before. Although it had ended pleasantly enough, the stern tone and uncomfortable face Earl had displayed kept flashing in front of her mind. It was mortifying that she had forgotten his place so utterly, and that he had had to remind her himself. It wasn't very <em>royal <em>of her, and she hoped keenly he wouldn't mention her oversight to anyone.

Although she knew he wasn't the type to gossip, the idea still made her cheeks flush anew. It might not have been so embarrassing, (indeed Amethyst, as mentioned previously, was not easily embarrassed) except for the unlucky event that occurred the next morning, when she had awoken earlier than normal.

She had heard whispers in the hallway as she slipped out of bed, which wasn't altogether abnormal, but then she heard her name and Earl's in quick succession. A few more moments of listening left her cheeks burning as she realized the women were discussing, with utmost casualty, her relationship with the Royal Event Coordinator: its impropriety, its likeliness to continue after the ball, the obvious romantic implications — when she couldn't stand another minute, Amethyst threw open the door and laid into the gossipers with a fierce and biting lecture about gossip and disrespecting one's sovereign. Even as the women murmured their apologies, however, a pit was settling in the princess' stomach: if the rumors had reached the princess' own ears, they had certainly been spreading for days. Amethyst was very aware of the gossip system in the palace.

It had not occurred to her that her meetings with Earl had been under scrutiny — why should they be? It was strictly a business operation, and she thought the servants quite petty to pull such outrageous stories from an innocent setup. However, in light of these stories, the argument of the night before seemed three times as embarrassing. It was the kind of story that the servants were looking for, and she hoped fervently that Earl had not seen fit to discuss their conversation with anyone.

To keep her mind off this unsettling complication, Amethyst spent the day running around to various parts of the palace, checking that everything was ready to go for the evening. But, everywhere she went, it seemed that Earl had just left — the coordinators and orchestrators looked harried and bothered when she asked them how things were going, as they had just apparently given Earl a detailed breakdown minutes before. After practically getting chased out of the kitchen by the now-fully-grumpy Chief Baker, Amethyst gave up her task, feeling useless, and retired to her quarters to begin dressing — anything to pass the time until the guests would begin arriving. Her best friend would be arriving an hour and a half before the ball began, and she planned to be ready in time to share a lengthy conversation with her before the party. Her nerves needed a friendly outlet.

"Your highness?"

The muffled voice was accompanied by a knock on her chamber door.

"Come in," Amethyst called, pulling on her dressing gown and gesturing at Renee to continue arranging her hair.

A maid slipped into the room and curtsied.

"The Syndocian princes sent word that they had been delayed on the road and shall be arriving at half past five instead of four o'clock."

"I hope all is well," Amethyst said, a bit worriedly.

She knew the roads between the Syndocian palace and the Folalli castle could be perilous — especially the road leading through the Pry. But, if they had sent someone ahead, they were probably all right, she reasoned.

"Very well," she replied. "If I am unable to greet them, be sure they are guided swiftly to their apartments so they can freshen up and join the festivities as soon as possible."

"Yes, your majesty."

"Hopefully I will be able to welcome them myself, but I don't know if that will be possible," she continued, mostly to herself.

She did want to greet them — and not only to avoid her mother's chastening on the matter. It had been a long while since she'd seen the princes, and she was looking forward to exchanging some words with them in relative solitude. Although Simon enjoyed himself immensely at parties, Tyrillius was more likely to follow in his shadow and remain more or less silent. For that reason, she wished to catch Tyrillius before the party took its toll on his mood and let him know that she was grateful he came. She might have been grateful mostly because her mother would never have let her hear the end of it otherwise, but that was beside the point.

"Very well; you may go," Amethyst said to the maid, realizing that she was just standing there and waiting to be dismissed. The woman quickly left. "What time is it now, Renee?"

"A quarter past three, your highness," Renee replied, glancing over her shoulder at the cuckoo clock on the wall.

"Cynthia is coming at half past four," Amethyst murmured to herself, calculating how long it would take to finish her wardrobe preparations.

She thought there would be plenty of time, which was very well with her. She was looking forward to talking with her best friend; it had been too long since they had seen each other.

Cynthia Warren was the daughter of Lord and Lady Warren, and she had been fast friends with Amethyst since the princess' eighth birthday party, when Duncan (son of Lord Herscher) had spilt bright red punch on them both as he tripped over his own feet. Tearful over their ruined dresses together, the girls formed some sort of bond, and they had been inseparable ever since. Now, as Amethyst was recovering from the hasty ball preparation and her unsettling conversation with Earl, not to mention the newly-discovered gossip that bothered her although she knew it shouldn't, she dearly wished for her friend's company.

Thankfully, the time passed rather quickly, as servants kept running in and out with updates and messages about food, guests, or entertainment while Renee was dressing her. When the maid came to announce Miss Warren's arrival, Amethyst had just finished pulling on her gloves and was taking a last look in the mirror.

Her auburn hair was piled atop her head in a mass of curls, which were coaxed from her naturally wavy hair quite readily. Her hazel eyes were lined with dark brown, and her freckles had all but disappeared. It was always odd to look at herself before a ball or event, because she always felt that she looked like her father even more distinctly than usual. The make-up erased the features she inherited from her mother — freckles, fair lashes and brows, and a too-pale complexion — and filled them in with features more like her stoic father. Her brows and lashes were darkened, skin smoothed and evened, and the eyes that matched her father's stood out when outlined with dark pencil.

She liked herself as she appeared then, resembling the Folalli royalty of her father instead of her mother's more southern blood. Still, it was almost as if she were looking at a completely different person, which disconcerted her slightly.

"Anyway," she said to no one in particular, pulling herself from her thoughts and smoothing the skirts of her sage dress unnecessarily.

She left the room and descended the side stairway to the second floor, then the front stairway to meet Cynthia where she was waiting in the foyer.

"You look gorgeous!" was Cynthia's greeting; she admired the princess' elegant dress openly. "That skirt will spin so well as you dance!"

Amethyst laughed and spun around then, letting the skirt twirl and ripple with the motion. Cynthia "ahh"ed appreciatively.

"Yours is lovely too," Amethyst said. "What is that material?"

"Silk from the south," replied Cynthia, drawing Amethyst's hand to touch her sleeve. "Isn't it soft? And it's lighter than air."

Her brown eyes sparkled with enthusiasm as she discussed the fabric.

"I'll have to order some," Amethyst remarked, quite enjoying the smoothness and appearance of the silk. "Oh, but it's so wonderful to see you again!"

"It is!" Cynthia cried, smiling brightly and hugging her friend closely. "Thank you for inviting me. I see you so little — and it was a wonderful excuse to make a new dress, of course."

"Naturally," Amethyst said with a pleased smile, taking her turn to admire her friend's attire.

Cynthia was very interested in fashion, and Amethyst always took her advice on dresses, which usually kept her on the cutting edge of new trends. Cynthia usually knew the newest style even before the castle seamstress did. As thanks for the advice, Amethyst always gave a dress or two to Cynthia each season, which kept her friend in the style she loved much more effectively than she could have otherwise. Her family's money was running out, and had been for years, but her parents did an admirable job stretching the money so as not to let on to their financial straits. They let most of their servants go and moved into a smaller house, and Cynthia took up sewing; she made most of her and her mother's dresses.

Looking at her petite friend's blue dress, Amethyst thought she recognized snippets of a dress Cynthia wore a year or two ago, blended in with other fabrics and the new silk sleeves. The presentation was flawless, however, and Amethyst doubted anyone else would recognize the old dress hidden amongst the various pieces.

"I was beginning to wonder if you were having a party at all this year," Cynthia admitted, pressing her small hand against Amethyst's.

She always sounded very sincere in everything she said and did — a trait that was very endearing when paired with her small stature and childlike figure. She gave the appearance of childish honesty and innocence, a picture that was not altogether untrue.

"Yes, it was all very last-minute," Amethyst said, looping her arm through Cynthia's and beginning to ascend the steps.

"I only just got my invitation a week ago!" Cynthia said. "I almost didn't finish my dress. Surely it was not _that_ last-minute?"

"The invitations were delivered the day after I knew I was having a party."

"You're quite lucky you're the princess," Cynthia laughed. "I'm sure some of your guests had to cancel or postpone other events in order to come."

"I know," Amethyst said with a frown. "If it were up to me, everything would have been planned months ago. Mother kept dragging her feet about the whole business until she finally gave me permission two weeks beforehand."

"You must have had a great party planner," Cynthia commented.

"Oh, yes," Amethyst said, trying to make her tone light and unconcerned, but Cynthia looked over at once and halted her steps.

Her eyes scrutinized Amethyst's face suspiciously. Amethyst should have known she wouldn't be able to breeze around the embarrassing topic and come around to it gently. Cynthia knew her mannerisms too well and had little patience for circuitous talk.

"What aren't you telling me?" she demanded.

"Nothing," Amethyst said uneasily. "Nothing important, really. Just have a lot on my mind. I can't tell you everything all at once, can I?"

She was about to continue the conversation when Cynthia took both of Amethyst's hands in her own and gave her a look that clearly indicated she was expecting a story.

"What's the matter?" she pressed. "It's something with the planner, is it? Was he useless?"

"No, no," Amethyst cried, chuckling. "No, he was wonderful, and it's due to him that this party is happening and everything came together on time."

"Then what?" Cynthia said, touching her elbow in concern.

Amethyst was starting to feel claustrophobia setting in, with Cynthia touching her so much.

"It's nothing," she protested, backing out of Cynthia's concerned grasp.

"Amethyst, don't tell me there's something going on with the two of you," Cynthia said, dropping the volume of her voice dramatically and looking around to be sure she would not be heard.

"Of course not," Amethyst said hastily, also looking over her shoulder for any eavesdroppers. "That's exactly the problem, though. There are rumors—"

"Oh, you know your servants," Cynthia said with obvious relief. "They'll make anything a story."

"But what if the tale gets back to Prince Tyrillius, or — heaven forbid — _Mother?_"

"They're just servants," Cynthia dismissed. "If there is no errant conduct, there is no reason to worry. The story will pass in time; they just want a scandal to amuse themselves for the time being. To keep their mind off—other things."

She glanced at Amethyst furtively, which made Amethyst uncomfortable. The fact that even her best friend didn't want to mention the curse aloud made it seem much more frightening than it already was.

"Probably," she agreed, glossing over the comment and feeling only slightly comforted by her friend's reassurance.

"Just leave no room for doubt on that front, by the way you behave tonight," Cynthia said. "Prince Tyrillius will be wonderful for you, and you can't have him withdrawing his interest because you only danced with him once and he heard you were having a passionate affair with a servant."

Amethyst latched on to the familiar subject of her not-quite-betrothal gladly, steering all talk away from the impending calamity.

"You sound like my mother," she quipped, rolling her eyes good-naturedly. "There is no agreement, no contract — not even a verbal proposal or offer of courtship."

"But there is an _understanding_," Cynthia said, "which is much better than that. His parents approve already, and both your parents and his have been preparing for this potential event for years."

"Well, I'm glad we won't be surprising anyone," Amethyst said a bit dryly, though she wasn't quite sure why she suddenly resented the assumption that she and Tyrillius would marry.

It only made sense, after all. And he was very pleasant, and even a bit funny. He was quiet, but that wasn't really a fault; he was a good listener, and he was eager to please her without giving up his own opinion. There had been worse matches made; she should be thankful. All the same, she suddenly had an insatiable urge to do something wild and unexpected for once in her life.

Not that she didn't usually seem wild and unexpected to those around her — she often took people by surprise with her outbursts and hair-brained ideas. All of those small things, however, fell within the scope of being a princess. She'd never been rebellious about anything big, anything that _truly _would have caused an uproar, either with her parents or the kingdom.

(The closest she had come to that was when she demanded to be addressed as "Sir Amethyst the Just" and pretended to be a knight for a stretch of almost six months when she was ten. Her father almost perished of embarrassment, and her mother seriously considered locking her in a tower until she'd gotten over her obsession with knights and dragons. But she'd passed through that phase before any real damage was done, much to her parents' relief.)

Maybe it was the fear of her impending curse that was stirring up these feelings. The thought that, in a matter of days, she could cease to exist was compelling by its very nature. If she were to die, what would anyone remember of her? That she was a temperamental princess who threw a wonderful party before she died? Or that she took chances and lived life like everyone had always wanted to — with abandon?

Of course, she'd only thought of these things a week before her birthday, which didn't leave her much time for that. The sinking feeling that she had wasted her life was beginning to press down on her, but she pushed it aside and turned to lighter conversation before Cynthia noticed her change of mood once more. She could think about adventures tomorrow. Maybe she could even sneak out of the palace and live for a day as a peasant — surely Earl could show her around the town. He would understand, at least.

She carried on conversation with Cynthia about the Warren estate and everything that had been occupying her friend's time since they had seen each other last, and that took up the remaining half-hour of their time together. Then the guests began to arrive in earnest, and the ballroom was opened at last, displaying the fruits of Amethyst and Earl's labors over the past weeks.

The ballroom had been transformed into a festive vision; candles in purple and blue lanterns hung from chains, which crossed the ceiling and held up the three chandeliers that gave the room most of its light. Ice sculptures of swans stood by the doors, encrusted with sapphires and amethysts that caught the light perfectly, and huge swatches of fabric hung from the walls. The effect was intended to soften the almost oppressively-elegant architecture of the room, in order to make it more fit for a birthday party, and the techniques came together in perfect success. The ballroom was almost unrecognizable as the adult, royal room it was for other gatherings. The huge panels of purple and blue that surrounded the guests — not the least of which being the midnight-blue rug that framed the floor of the room — made sure of that.

Elegantly wrapped gifts began to pile up on the designated table on the side of the room, and small circles of guests formed around the refreshment tables while they waited to be seated at the long banqueting table in the middle of the room. Musicians were playing a few light, airy tunes to set the tranquil mood, and the guests exclaimed appropriately about the brightness of the decorations and freshness of the flowers.

"Your highness, the Syndocian carriage has arrived," Micah whispered in Amethyst's ear as she greeted Lady Darlene.

He was taking his job as her bodyguard more seriously than usual, with all the strangers about, so he barely had to move from his position in order to make himself heard.

"It's lovely to see you; thank you for coming," Amethyst said to the lady with a smile, then added smoothly, "If you'll excuse me."

She quickly slipped from the room (almost running into Micah who was then reprimanded again for his closeness) and made her way to the entrance hall, just as Prince Simon and Prince Tyrillius were being ushered through the double doors.

"Prince Simon, Prince Tyrillius," Amethyst greeted with a warm smile. "I'm so very glad you could come."

"The pleasure is ours, dear princess," Simon said, bowing and kissing her hand as she curtsied. "I am relieved that we were not late."

"Yes, I heard you were delayed on the road," Amethyst said, noting their sun-pinked cheeks and slightly dusty clothes. They had obviously tried to brush the soil off, but desert dirt was difficult to banish; the clothes would have to be washed before they appeared clean again.

"One of the wheels came off our carriage," Tyrillius explained apologetically, then started to bow and kiss her hand as well. "It's a good thing someone drove by and gave us a ride into town, or we might still be out in the Pry."

"Oh! This happened in the desert?" Amethyst cried. "I'm so glad you're alright."

His hand being near, she squeezed it momentarily in earnest (Cynthia was already rubbing off on her, and she had not been there two hours; such was their relationship.) Noticing Simon's chuckle, she dropped it and grinned at Tyrillius with some embarrassment herself. She could not tell if the boy's cheeks were pink with blush or sunburn, but he met her eyes briefly and smiled.

"Show the princes to their chamber," she said, turning to Micah who was, for once, lingering respectfully against the wall. His ears were still burning from the rebuke she had just given him.

"Yes, your highness," he murmured, calculating the quickest way to show them to their room and return to Amethyst's side, so as not to leave her unguarded. The queen had been very clear that the princess was not to be left alone under any circumstances, especially since the king and queen had promised not to make an appearance. (It was to be a party strictly for Amethyst and her peers — a concept only barely agreed upon, and only under the promise that Amethyst would stay in sight of a guard at all times.)

"I will see you in the ballroom when you are ready," she said to both of them, lifting her hand slightly in farewell and turning to mount the stairs.

"We will not keep you waiting," Simon promised, and they followed the servant up the side staircase.

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><p><strong>Review Prompt Of The Day: Do you think anything is going to happen at the ball? If so, what? (Keep in mind that this party is a week before her actual birthday.)<strong>

**Wow, it seems like everyone else is busy too. Only two reviews this chapter. :-/**

Eva**: 3: I'm glad you like Tyrillius! He's a doll. I love your speculation on the countries! I'll take it all into consideration. :-D Oh Eva, you know I will not repeat a plotline (intentionally!). You'll just have to see what happens. :-) 4: They were quick because I wanted to update just as you were reading! Haha. Nono, I'm thinking they hitched it up ****nicely so it would be rolling on the three wheels with the axle roped into the hitching-up process to keep it off the ground. Trust me on this; it needs to happen this way, and in this situation it works even if it seems a little unbelievable. :-) Wait... you think Marthe is a witch? No one said anything about that. O.o Haha, Randall is a wonderful man. You'll be seeing him again. -grin-**

Captain**: It's alright – I'm just glad you reviewed! Haha, perhaps it will seem more real when you get an invitation? XD Don't you love that I keep building the suspense for the ball without actually showing it? ;-) Your conjecture on the wrestling match seems reasonable to me. Wise words, haha. I'd be flattered if you used that line! XD It happens to me all the time, too. Within 5 minutes. I don't know what's up with that exactly. Hm, you're right about my royalty always being nice... I wonder what that says about us. I'd be interested in a professional opinion. XD**

**Reviewers get an iced mocha from this little coffee shop! Yum!**


	6. Chapter 6

**11 . 12 . 12**

**Surprise! I'm alive! The wedding was quite successful, in case you were curious. I'm well and thoroughly married now. Huzzah!**

**I'm sorry it took so long to get back to this. The summer was a whirlwind, and the fall was a hurricane. **Captain Fantastic** reminded me that some people missed my writing (which is baffling to me) which made me open up Charlie once more. I have quite a lot drafted, but I need to flesh some things out and generally do some critical editing, as most of the drafts were written during NaNoWriMo LAST year. So anyway, here's to hoping I will be able to update more frequently.**

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><p>The princes entered the ballroom just as Amethyst called everyone together for dinner. Tyrillius had been placed on Amethyst's right, and Cynthia on her left. Tyrillius pulled out the princess' chair for her, beating Micah to the task by mere seconds. Slightly miffed, the bodyguard nevertheless took the action in stride and turned to help Cynthia into her seat.<p>

"Thank you," Amethyst said to Tyrillius with a smile, taking her seat at the middle of the long table.

"My pleasure," Tyrillius said, meeting her eyes before taking his own seat and surveying the table.

The remainder of the guests were finding their seats and greeting their neighbors, if they had not spoken to them yet in the evening. The seating arrangement had been puzzled over thoroughly by Amethyst and Earl in the days preceding the party, to ensure that everyone would enjoy their partners in conversation during the meal and no fights would break out.

Lady Darlene, for instance, was seated near enough to Lord Covington that they could engage in their usual witty conversation, amusing those around them. But, she was a safe distance from Lord Felton, a boy who never ceased to bring out the worst in her — especially in public.

"You've chosen to sit in the middle of the table instead of the head," Tyrillius observed to Amethyst, his voice quiet but not inaudible.

"That I have," Amethyst said. "Take a guess as to the reason."

"To ensure that you will hear every interesting conversation," Tyrillius responded without hesitation. "At the head of the table, you often miss the best bits."

"You are absolutely right," Amethyst said, slightly miffed that Tyrillius guessed the reasoning so quickly; she had thought she was being dreadfully clever when she had the idea.

"Simon and I would always discuss our bug collections at the dinner table when there were guests visiting," he admitted, chuckling at the memory. "And Father would never hear us, because we weren't sitting directly next to him."

Amethyst laughed brightly, imagining Simon and Tyrillius in their youth, discussing beetles and ants over chicken patee.

"I believe it," she said simply, and then their conversation was cut off by the delivery of the first course.

The food did not keep anyone silent for long; conversation at the table was energetic, tossed around as it was by lively youths. Prince Simon, at age twenty-two, was among the eldest guests present, and certainly the most formal in his speech — though nowhere near the quietest. (He had always been the louder of the two brothers.) He quickly adapted to the younger population, however, and was soon joking and teasing along with the best of them — inclining a few of the starry-eyed younger girls to take a bashful interest in him.

Amethyst joined the conversations with vigor as well — both those near at hand and those further down the table that caught her ear. It didn't take long to apprise herself of all the latest goings-on in the kingdom, factual and rumored, and she added her own opinions to the stories without reservation. Though she was the birthday girl, and a princess, most of the guests had been attending her parties since they were quite young; everyone felt as familiar with her as their own cousins. And so, like with their cousins and friends, the princess was no more safe from the teasing than any of the others present.

"Still not eating your asparagus, I see," Lord Granson commented with a grin, his eyes dropping to her plate. The offending vegetables looked entirely untouched, though the rest of the foods had been swirled together or eaten alone, leaving an appropriate amount of residue behind.

"I didn't even want asparagus," Amethyst said, wrinkling her nose distastefully and moving her spoon even further from the repulsive greens. "But apparently there was a surplus in the kitchens, and the cook made a personal plea to include it in the menu so it wouldn't spoil."

"How generous of you," Lady Harris said, stabbing a green pole with her fork and lifting it daintily to her lips.

Amethyst watched in disgust as her friend crunched on the head of the asparagus. When Lady Harris sighed with pleasure, Amethyst shuddered.

"It's horrid," she declared. "Someone must agree with me."

"I must confess I've never tried it," Tyrillius said, interrupting his system of practical eating (fruit, then some potato, then savory dish, then some more potato, then meat, then vegetable) to examine the vegetable in question.

It looked harmless enough to him, so he skewered it carefully with his fork and took what he hoped was an inconspicuous sniff as he brought it to his mouth. It smelled only of butter and herbs, so he didn't think it could be so bad.

There were some gasps and laughs when he said he had never tried it, but those had ceased when it was evident that he was about to partake of the subject of the argument. All who had heard the exchange now focused their attention on the foreign prince, whispering their bets on whether he'd like it or not to each other as they waited for him to take a bite.

"Doesn't it come from the mountains? Syndoc has a lot of mountains. It's probably in his blood to like it."

"But he always dislikes food that tastes strongly of anything. Notice he doesn't even drink coffee after dinner."

Tyrillius knew everyone was looking at him, so he kept his face neutral as he took his first bite, snipping the head of the stalk cleanly with his teeth, as Lady Harris had just done moments before. The first thing he tasted was butter and herb, warm and mild, coating his tongue as butter always did. Then he tasted the vegetable and could not help the face he made. He had been expecting something more like a green bean or snap pea, from his appearance, but it was not nearly as sweet as either of them.

The table exploded in laughter as he blinked and swallowed hastily, then reached for his goblet to extinguish the taste as soon as possible. Amethyst was giggling, although her eyes were sympathetic.

"There is something we have in common that is apparently not held as a common trait in Folall, she said with a laugh.

"So it would seem," Tyrillius said, clearing his throat and joining them in good-natured laughter. For a moment, the table blurred and he felt as if her were at just another Syndocian dinner party, with all the loud comments and raucous laughter. He almost felt at home, and the way Amethyst smiled at him made him grin back and roll his eyes as if to say, "Who cares what they think?" Her nose wrinkled as she smiled again, and her hand brushed against his before returning to her own napkin and goblet.

So dinner passed in a flurry of laughter and conversation, and soon the servants were moving the table aside in preparation for the highly-anticipated evening of dancing. (The youth were already sidling up to their preferred dancing partners in actions they thought subtle; in fact, they were quite obvious even to one another, and there were almost some squabbles over the more adroit dancers.)

If Amethyst felt at all lightheaded after dinner, she paid it no mind. She hadn't gotten a proper night's sleep in two weeks, after all, and her meals had been scattered and light. She was probably just over-tired or under-nourished — at least, this is what she told herself as she headed to the dance floor yet again. She hadn't even been able to sit down after dinner; as the hostess and princess, her dance card was almost completely full before Prince Tyrillius had the opportunity to request a dance. Thankfully, Cynthia had had the good sense to remind her friend to keep a slot open for him.

Certainly she was just exhausted.

Perhaps it was this exhaustion that was causing her to view everything in a darker light than it had seemed hours ago. Every glance from her friends had seemed laden with unspoken worry or dark fear; she was sure everyone was thinking of the curse, though no one said anything. They all appeared to be enjoying themselves, Amethyst reassured herself, but still she couldn't shake the ache of dread. Suddenly, her birthday seemed as frightening as it had been in her worst nightmares.

But, surely, a good night's sleep would cure her.

She tried to put these thoughts from her mind as she smiled at Tyrillius when the song changed. It was his turn; Lord Felton had just bowed and left her.

"This is a wonderful party," Tyrillius said, smiling and taking Amethyst's hand for his promised dance. "Happy birthday, by the way. I don't think I've wished you one yet."

"Thank you," Amethyst said, mustering a smile. She didn't think she was imagining the sombre undertones in Tyrillius' birthday wish, though those might have been due to his naturally serious nature. "I must admit that the festivities have completely worn me out."

"Do you want to sit this dance out?" Tyrillius asked with concern, now seeing the weariness on her face.

Though the dance had just begun, he stopped mid-step to await her response. The other couples on the floor barely noticed them, as they were still on the edge of the floor.

"Oh no, I promised you this dance," Amethyst insisted, but a yawn crept into her last word, betraying her politeness.

"If I can live without one thing, it's a dance," Tyrillius said firmly, leading her from the floor. "We can talk together, if you like. That's sort of the point of dancing, anyway — to give you a reason to talk with people and a diversion if you don't feel like it."

"It's true," Amethyst said, seizing his idea gratefully. She was embarrassed at her own tiredness and felt some obligation to the Syndocian prince, since he had traveled the better part of two days to attend a one-night party. "You'll have to catch me up on the news in Syndoc. I have not been paying it the attention it deserves."

"Well," Tyrillius said, offering the princess a chair before seating himself, "the biggest news in Syndoc at the moment is Prince Simon's engagement to Lady Trope."

Amethyst exclaimed, and Tyrillius quickly continued, "It was only announced a week ago, so you aren't terribly behind. I'm sure you were up to your ears in party planning."

"That I was," Amethyst agreed vehemently, thinking of Earl.

She had seen glances of him across the room a few times during dinner, but the man never stayed around long. True to his word, he seemed to be keeping himself busy ensuring that the party ran as smoothly as they'd hoped it would. The last time he'd seen her, just before the servants had moved the banqueting table out of the hall, he'd caught her eye and flashed her a quick, bashful smile.

As if knowing that she was thinking of him, Earl came through one of the side doors then, and her head went suddenly fuzzy.

Tyrillius said something else, but Amethyst had ceased to pay him any attention. Nor did she quite register the eye-contact Earl made with her as he glanced around the room. She was finding it very hard to concentrate, and her heart was pounding with anxiety once again. She pushed the irrational worry away and dragged her attention back to Tyrillius with great effort.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"Would you like to go lie down?" Tyrillius said, frowning with concern.

This, of course, had not really been what he had just said. But as the princess looked like she might be about to fall asleep where she sat, it was a forgivable replacement.

Amethyst was about to protest when she yawned instead, and Tyrillius took that as an affirmative. He stood and offered her his arm. When she protested weakly, he firmly insisted, and she finally stood with a sigh to allow him to escort her from the ballroom. They didn't speak much as they walked; it took most of Amethyst's concentration to put one foot in front of the other.

If Micah had not been following them, Tyrillius suspected they might not have even made it to the princess' chambers at all. Whenever Amethyst looked puzzled at an intersection, Micah would give humble instruction from behind. Tyrillius made a note to thank the man after Amethyst was delivered safely to her room.

"I will only be away for a few minutes," Amethyst promised as they reached her door.

"Take as long as you need," Tyrillius replied, bowing and kissing her knuckles in farewell before heading back to the ballroom.

Amethyst closed the door behind herself as Micah took his station in the hallway nearby. She vaguely remembered stumbling to her bed, but she fell asleep so quickly that she couldn't later recall the soft creaking of the door as it opened again.

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><p>The party continued without Amethyst for about thirty minutes before any of the guests began to grow restless, wondering when the hostess would return. Long before that, however, Earl became aware of her absence. Whether this was due to a general knack for noticing things or whether it was due to something entirely different was completely inconsequential. What <em>was <em>consequential was that upon ascertaining the princess' whereabouts (eavesdropping is a marvelous invention) he ventured to her chamber to find her quite vanished.

He did check the perimeter of the room — including both closets, all three wardrobes, and under the bed — to be sure she was not inexplicably hiding in one or the other of these places, before he began to properly panic. Even in this situation, however, Earl kept his clarity of thought; so as not to alarm the guests, he called for help by discreetly ringing the Request For Service bell that hung next to the princess' bed. It was attached, by a series of pulleys and clever architecture, to a bell in the servant's common area. Whatever servant was available, then, would come to the princess' (or in this case, Earl's) aid.

As tribute to the bell's effectiveness, Earl was soon joined by Renee.

"Yes, your highness, how may I — _oh, _it's you." Renee's polite speech fell flat when she saw Earl in the doorway, and she didn't even bother to bow.

It was not strictly out of disrespect that Renee acted thus (although she thought Earl was getting too friendly with the princess for his own good — but that was his own matter), but she had been in the middle of a very friendly moment with a servant named Kaleb when Fiona pulled her away and demanded that she see to the princess.

Earl noticed her flushed cheeks and tousled hair and bowed slightly in apology.

"I'm sorry to disturb you," he said calmly, "but have you any idea where the princess is?"

"Does it _look_ like I've been trailing around after her?" Renee said rudely, now more annoyed that her encounter with Kaleb had been interrupted for a simple and thoroughly unnecessary question. Hopefully he hadn't left. "Why don't you ask Micah? That lout is always hanging about her so closely it's a wonder his perfect armor hasn't been smudged by her make-up. Anyway, she should be in the ballroom, not _here. _You helped plan this party — don't you know that?"

"Yes, where is Micah?" Earl muttered, latching onto that disturbing revelation in the midst of Renee's tirade.

He recalled seeing Micah in the ballroom, staying close to Amethyst as always. After she had left, he was nowhere to be found; Earl assumed he had escorted her to her chamber. In that case, he should be standing in the hallway. A quick glance affirmed that the guard was nowhere in sight.

"Wherever the princess is, I'd wager," Renee said impatiently. "Now, if you're done questioning me—"

"Yes, of course," Earl said, bowing again. "I'm sorry to interrupt you."

Renee felt it didn't behoove her wounded sense of justice to reply, so she just dipped into a sloppy curtsy and left the hallway. Earl, once again left to his own devices but now with a more rapidly growing sense of panic, set off briskly down the hall in search of either the princess or Micah.

Cursory checks of meeting rooms and parlors on that floor turned up neither person, and it was only on a whim to open the storeroom door that he found the unfortunate Micah.

Upon spying the inconspicuous door, Earl pulled it open without caution and was immediately crushed by several large objects falling on top of him. The servants who cleaned and frequented that floor knew of the storeroom's capacity to share its contents with the hallway, but Earl had not even stepped onto the third floor until two weeks previous — when he woke Amethyst for the first time. This being the case, he was blissfully unaware of the vengeful closet, though this ignorance came to a swift and painful end when he caught a doorjamb in the head and two mops and a breastplate in the chest.

He fell backward with a cry and a clatter, and after he removed the stone ornament from his forehead he realized that the breastplate was attached to a suit of armor, which was attached to a person — which explained the heaviness on his chest.

"Micah, is that you?" Earl grunted, lifting the visor of the helmet that was mere inches from his nose and trying to wriggle out from underneath the guard (rather unsuccessfully). He didn't want to think about what would have happened if he'd caught _that _in the head.

"Hmm?" came the slurred reply from inside the helmet.

Some of the incoherence may be blamed on the acoustics of the helmet, but this could only be done in an attempt to save face for the guard. The slurring came primarily from his inability to speak, which Earl quickly understood as he watched Micah slowly open his eyes and attempt to focus them on Earl.

"Good heavens, man, are you drunk?" Earl asked in a sharp whisper, appalled at the state of the princess' loyal guard.

"No!" Micah replied at once, and indignantly, slightly more awake now that he was being accused of impropriety. "I was — where am I?"

"You're lying atop me, currently," Earl said shortly. "And I would appreciate your moving, for the sake of my ability to continue breathing."

The guard was crushing Earl's lungs quite effectively with the combined weight of himself and his suit of armor; Earl had used the last of his available breath to compose that sentence.

"Am I — is this the storage closet?" Micah said in utter confusion, though he did move off of Earl's chest — with some difficulty (after all, the armor Micah wore was best suited for upright movement, not horizontal movement.)

"Yes, this is the storeroom on the third floor," Earl said in reply to Micah's question, once he had taken a gulp of air.

"What the devil was I doing in there?" Micah said in continued bewilderment, though he had enough presence of mind to offer Earl a hand after he had managed to get himself upright, with a struggle. (The armor also assumed the wearer would remain in an upright position and not have to move from horizontal to vertical at any point. A wonderful design in the battlefield — not so when one is falling out of closets.) Earl took the hand and heaved himself aright with much more alacrity.

"That's what I was going to ask you," he said. "Sleeping, perhaps inebriated, in the storeroom is not the ideal place for the princess' bodyguard to be found when the princess herself has gone missing."

"The princess!" Micah yelped, his eyes widening suddenly in remembrance of his duty. "She's been kidnapped!"

Micah took off running down the corridor with the sound of clanking metal.

"That's not what I said!" Earl cried, running after him. "I just can't locate her at the moment!"

Micah skidded to a stop; Earl caught up with him.

"I know," he said urgently. "That's what _I'm _saying. She was — what time is it?"

"Twenty past eight," Earl said, consulting his pocketwatch.

"It's only been fifteen minutes," he mumbled, then his visage brightened considerably. "There may still be time!"

He bolted down the hallway once more, leaving Earl to keep pace as best he could; the Royal Event Coordinator was not altogether in shape.

"What on earth are you talking about?" Earl huffed.

"The princess was fatigued, so the Syndocian prince offered to escort her to her chamber. I followed them, naturally, and then remained on post in the hallway upon arriving. Not moments later, I heard footsteps coming up the hall — and that's the last thing I remember."

His ability to tell a story whilst running was impressive, though the feat was lost on Earl who was struggling to merely _listen_ while running.

"Help! The princess has been kidnapped!" Micah shouted as they reached the stairwell.

He bounded down the steps two at a time, apparently not fearful of the possibility of falling down them. Earl was more careful, though it meant he lost the energetic guard before he'd descended halfway to the next floor. The man's shouts echoed in the stairwell still, accompanied by the further clanking of armor from the guards rushing to his aid.

"Lock the doors! Bar the gates!"

"Yes, sir!"

"I've got the south door!"

"And I the north!"

"Bar the gates!" Micah shouted again. "They might still be on the grounds!"

Earl stepped from the stairwell in time to see a half-dozen guards spinning on their heels to obey Micah's frantic calls. These guards took the message to everyone else as they ran through the castle. The guests were soon in a panic, which was an entirely understandable state of affairs — not because they knew what was going on, but because Micah ordered that the ballroom be locked down and placed under the steady and unforgiving eye of Major Greene.

Although it was an unpleasant and diplomatically dangerous move, the order had come from the King himself; since they did not know who might have aided in the plot, no one was allowed to leave until they were thoroughly questioned and found innocent of foul play.

While this action made many of the guests angry, there was really nothing they could do about it — either physically, or legally. As citizens of Folall, they were bound to do whatever their king commanded, even if it was an action usually frowned upon by the more-independent nobility. The only persons who could complain, and with legal weight, were the princes of Syndoc. Prince Simon was not yet complaining; he was waiting to see what the hubbub was about, first. (He was also quite distracted trying to find his brother in the throngs of young guests which suddenly became more maddening to navigate now that they were upset.)

A search of the castle and ground was then begun, utilizing all guards and servants who were not attending the guests. It was during this search that Prince Tyrillius was found in a side stairwell between the second and third floors, claiming he had gotten lost on his way back from escorting the princess. As finding the ballroom was a simple matter of retracing his steps, he was wisely disbelieved and taken to a separate room to await questioning.

(At this point, Simon had realized that his brother was not in the ballroom at all, and he began arguing with the guard to let him find his brother. This culminated in a shouting match, which left Simon the unfortunate loser, strictly because the other man held a sword.)

Prince Tyrillius vehemently denied any involvement in the situation, as they expected he would; he furthermore began to explain the complicated nature of the third floor layout which would make it perfectly understandable that he had gotten lost — which they also expected he would do. Neither argument availed him of anything except stony looks from the guards at the door, so he soon gave them both up and slumped dejectedly into the very uncomfortable wooden chair provided to him.

The back of the chair rubbed against his sunburn vengefully, reminding him of the earlier incident with the carriage wheel. This day was not turning out to be a very fortunate one for him, all things considered. He bit his tongue to keep from shouting, because he knew it would do no good. (He didn't really like shouting, anyway, but it had a habit of accomplishing things in Syndoc, so he'd gotten good at it. All the same, this skill would not aid him here, and he knew that.)

Other than the discovery of the Syndocian prince, the search yielded no results. (This was not good for the prince's continued pleas of innocence, nor for the elder prince, who had just been informed that his brother was being held under suspicion of murder. The guard's sword remained the only thing that kept him in the ballroom.)

It was concluded, then, that the princess had gone well and thoroughly missing, presumably kidnapped or murdered by either Prince Tyrillius himself, or by the prince's plan to allow a nefarious being into the castle to perform this task.

Upon hearing this formal accusation, Tyrillius lost his good sense and took to declaring the truth in sequentially louder volumes, but to no avail. His formidable shouts echoed down the hallway, but the guards were stony-faced. Their beloved princess was missing, and they had only one person to blame for it, as far as they were concerned.

Not a fortunate day, indeed.


	7. Chapter 7

**6 . 1 . 13**

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><p>The news that Princess Amethyst had gone missing, and at the hand of none other than her rumored intended, spread like wildfire through Folall, radiating outward from the palace so that all towns within 20 miles knew the story before the rise of the moon. The story was always just ahead of the guards that came riding into town, ransacking inns and searching houses for the princess and her captor. Although the countrymen of Folall were relieved to hear that no spindle was found either in the palace or elsewhere — and was thus unlikely to be involved — they were still anxious about the fact that such a dreadful thing had happened so close to the advent of the princess' curse.<p>

The two could not be unrelated, they told each other in whispers over trades and drinks.

Not a word was spoken of Prince Tyrillius unless it was accompanied by a disgusted spit or a curse. Normally a trusting and flexible people, the Folalli peasants latched onto the idea that Prince Tyrillius had something to do with the princess' disappearance with startling ferocity. Magic, they did not understand. Politics, they understood even less, but there was no denying its existence at least. A curse was nebulous and frightening, but a human could be caught and punished and the princess returned.

And so, usually on shaky terms with the royal guards, the townspeople wordlessly opened their homes for inspection and didn't complain (loudly) if some trinket was accidentally damaged in the shuffle. Despite all this extraordinary hospitality, however, the princess was not found. But, the prince was still being held prisoner so, in the minds of the townsfolk, it was only a matter of time before he divulged her location.

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><p>After hearing the accusations that faced his brother, it only took Simon ten minutes to argue his way out of the ballroom and bully the guard into telling him where his brother was being held; even a sword could not deter him when his family and reputation was on the line. Despite the protests of a particularly loud-mouthed guard — Simon thought he'd heard him being called Micah — the Crown Prince of Syndoc swept down to the vaguely dungeon-like hallway, where he could already hear his brother shouting with (rightful) anger.<p>

"I swear by my kingdom and crown that I had nothing to do with this!" the man's voice echoed, from the inside of a heavy door.

"What is the meaning of this?" Simon said, his voice flinty and unrelenting. The guards at the door jumped to their feet and bowed at him, looking slightly embarrassed, but unrepentant.

"He's been accused of the murder — or at the very least, accomplice in the kidnapping — of Princess Amethyst," Micah said, coming up behind him and saving the guards from responding. "As you've already been told."

"You have no evidence," Simon said flatly. "He is a foreign dignitary; you cannot hold him without consent."

Micah had no reply for that, and Simon was about to order the guards to unlock the door when Major Greene joined them in the hallway.

"Step away from that door, Hitchins," he said without looking at the guard; the man stepped back. "MacLean, why is the prince not with the other guests?"

Micah opened his mouth to reply, but Simon beat him to it.

"Because you have no right to hold me there, just as you have no right to hold my brother in that room," he replied.

"It is for everyone's safety, Prince Simon," Major Greene said immediately. "Until we know more details of the princess' disappearance, no one is leaving the castle."

"Then let my brother out of the room, and we will both return to the ballroom," Simon said, his reply coming with no hesitation. "We will await questioning, together, with the _rest_ of the guests."

"I think that's a good idea!" Tyrillius hollered from inside the door; clearly he could hear them.

Major Greene didn't even glance at the door. On the other side, Tyrillius was quiet, probably waiting to hear the Major's response.

"That simply isn't possible," Major Greene said, eyes narrowing.

There was an indeterminate shout from Tyrillius, which both men ignored.

"Then neither is it possible for the two of us to remain under your hospitality," Simon said. "I will thank you to show us both to our carriage."

"We will not release him until we are sure he has had nothing to do with this," Major Greene said. "And frankly, that's looking less and less likely as time passes."

Simon took a slow breath, reshuffling his arguments in his head until he found the most straightforward line of thought. Major Greene was attempting to stare him down, but Simon was unaffected. He reminded himself not to shout — the Folalli didn't like that — and threw his next barb.

"You are on the edge of committing diplomatic suicide," Simon said, his voice low and dangerous; his face was serious. "There is no war declared, and you cannot thus imprison him without my father's permission."

"He is suspected of aiding and abetting in the princess' capture or murder, and as such we cannot let him go," Major Greene said, his tone equally steely and face equally set.

"Suspected on what evidence?" Simon accused. "That he was found nowhere near the princess' bedchamber, and clearly had not kidnapped her?"

He had heard the guards talking quietly while he was in the ballroom. Eavesdropping was one of his many talents.

"He was the only guest who had left the ballroom, and the last to be seen with the princess, on word of MacLean, the princess' royal guard."

The guard in question shifted his weight slightly at the major's mention.

"Hardly enough evidence to hold him here rather than in the ballroom with the other guests. It is a disgrace to your country to treat a visiting prince with such indignity."

"We merely have the safety of the princess in mind," Major Greene said sharply. There would be an uproar throughout the country if their beloved princess went missing and nothing appeared to be done about it right away.

"I demand to talk to the king and queen at once," Simon said, brushing past the man and heading back toward the stairs.

"I cannot allow that," the major said smoothly, turning and keeping pace with the prince.

"You do not presume to say that I am under suspicion as well, Major Greene?" Simon said, sparing him a wilting glance which the man absorbed to no effect.

"Of course not," he said. "The royal couple is not taking visitors."

"This is not a _visit," _Simon said, knowing very well the political jargon that the major was trying to pose as explanation. He'd grown up in the royal court, and he'd thrived on the wordplay. Still, he steadied his temper with a breath so as not to yell, and continued. "This is parlay on behalf of my brother, a foreign prince who is being held captive in their kingdom — nay, in their very home! A fact which, I suspect, they have not even been made aware of, Major Greene."

The man now appeared a bit ruffled, but Simon interrupted him when he began to explain the situation again with more vague terminology. The prince had won, and they both knew it was only a matter of time before Simon got what he wanted. But Simon knew that in a case with high tensions and nasty rumors, time was of the essence. So, he pulled out his final weapon and sealed the battle.

"If I am not presented to the king and queen, or else my brother is released from his appalling and humiliating imprisonment, you will find the Syndocian army at your doorstep tomorrow. I'd like to see you explain that to your monarchs, _sir."_

After that thinly veiled threat of war, the major suddenly found the wisdom in letting Prince Tyrillius out of the room, especially since the investigation had not yet turned up any hard evidence linking Tyrillius to the crime. The two princes headed straight to the stables, not wanting to take any chances that the king might, in his crazed worry, demand that they be waylaid and thrown in the dungeon.

As much as Simon was willing to threaten war, it was the last thing that he wanted. The two countries had a petty and tempestuous history. (The royal families went through spurts of pleasantness, indicated by good trade laws and combined festivals, followed by years of irrational annoyance, littered with pointless raids and negative propaganda.) A skirmish would not be helpful for either country; the good spell had lasted for three generations so far, and the future was looking hopeful. The intended marriage of Tyrillius and Amethyst was meant to seal the peace forever.

When they arrived in the stables, however, they soon remembered their broken carriage. As Randall had suspected, the repair had barely carried them to the Folalli palace. When they'd arrived, he had gone to work on the carriage right away with the help of the castle blacksmith. The job was not completely done, however, and (probably on some whispered order from Major Greene) the blacksmith suddenly found himself in need of more time, as he unapologetically told the royal pair. If Simon wasn't, at this point, already inclined to disbelieve everyone in this godforsaken castle — country, really — then the roasting look Randall was giving the blacksmith would have been enough to confirm his suspicion.

Simon prepared to argue the man into a corner, like he had with the major, but soon found himself inexplicably stymied. Ten minutes of ferocious arguing and yelling yielded the princes nothing from the blacksmith. Unlike the major, the man had no political background or social training; he was simply stubborn and following orders. Simon wasn't as familiar dealing with people like that. Tyrillius, unfortunately, was of no help whatsoever. Whenever he opened his mouth, he made things worse, so he eventually just stopped talking. It was all for the better anyway; his mind was far too preoccupied with the sobering events that had just occurred, and the whirlwind of the preceding hours.

Eventually the argument was stopped by the arrival of the Stable Master, who had apparently not been reached by Major Greene. He offered them their pick of any of the royal horses and a promise that their luggage and servants would be returned to Syndoc with the royal carriage — or sooner, if they so desired.

The man probably just wanted them to stop yelling and get out of the stable. Still, it was a kind gesture. One that Tyrillius appreciated at least, because he was starting to jump whenever he heard an armored footstep. Simon grumbled about the carriage, but he was not seriously worried that they would sabotage it in any way. And if they did, Randall would kill them. Maybe not _kill _them. (But maybe he would. He took his job very seriously. And he liked that carriage. He'd helped to design it, in fact.)

The brothers set off at once, riding as fast as they safely could toward the border. Tyrillius soon became exceeding grateful for the more expeditious form of transportation. The citizens of Folall were giving him looks that would curdle milk at every town where they stopped to rest. He was grateful that they would be able to make it over the border and through the Pry before they had to stop and sleep. He was starting to worry that someone might kill him outright.

When Tyrillius confessed this to Simon, he looked unperturbed.

"Of course they're going to react that way," he said, giving a stony look to someone who had been staring at them for far too long. "You may have aided in the kidnapping of their beloved princess, and you're getting off scot-free."

"I had nothing to do with it!" Tyrillius replied angrily. "There isn't even any evidence against me! I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Aren't they all," Simon muttered, almost to himself, before taking a drink of water. Tyrillius was so taken aback by this that he didn't respond, and Simon continued. "That's enough evidence to garner suspicion, Tyrillius."

Something about this whole interaction was making Tyrillius uneasy. Now that it occurred to him, Simon hadn't really seemed quite himself since they'd left the castle. Tyrillius had initially blamed it on the frenzy of the evening, and all the arguments and hassle Simon had had to go through, but now he wasn't so sure.

"You don't think I'm involved, do you?" he said, the words sounding ridiculous, even to him.

He hoped his brother would laugh, or punch him in the arm, or something, but the man didn't even look him in the eye. Nor did he respond.

"Simon?"

"We should keep riding," Simon said, setting his glass down on the table and standing up. "The horses have had enough of a break."

"Simon, you don't seriously—"

"I don't know, Tyrillius," Simon said sharply, his eyes catching his for a moment before dropping away. "I don't know. But now is not the time to be having this conversation. Too many ears are keening toward us."

He gifted several other patrons of the small establishment with heated glares, then walked through the loosely-hinged door with a bang. Tyrillius followed after him, his mind racing. His brother would be on his side, he thought. Even if no one else was, Simon would be. Simon was always on his side.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked Simon as they saddled their horses; there was no one else in the stable.

"Because I don't know what happened," Simon said, tightening the girth. "All I know is that the princess went missing, and you were the only one not where you were supposed to be."

"I got lost!" Tyrillius cried, frustrated that no one seemed to believe him.

He wanted to spin all of them around, blindfolded, in front of the princess' chamber and then ask them to find their way back to the ballroom. In the dark. Without a map. Maybe then they would realize just how easy it was to get turned around. Every room looked the same! It was poor planning. Whoever designed that floor should have been fired; Tyrillius hoped savagely that he was. Perhaps living in a dirty village somewhere on the outskirts of town, scraping by in a house of his own design which was now _falling apart._

"Then how do you explain the book?" Simon shot back, now climbing into the saddle. Tyrillius hadn't even finished saddling his horse.

"What book?" Tyrillius asked blankly.

"Just keep saying that, and you'll be okay," Simon said wearily. "I grabbed it before they found it, I think, but just in case."

Tyrillius finished saddling his horse and mounted it smoothly, racking his mind for any book he brought that could be incriminating. He'd only brought two, though: _The Fine And Ancient History Of Calligraphy_ and _The Gentleman's Sport, _which was a book about jousting. Neither of them should have been worth any panic, unless the disappearance was somehow linked to a competitor in the Folalli jousting tournament, or a sinister calligrapher.

"I only brought a book about calligraphy and jousting," Tyrillius finally said and they headed out of the stable. "Which one did you take?"

Simon shot him a tired look.

"I'm not going to say anything to anyone, Ty. I want you to know that. All this same, I'm burning this book about spindles as soon as we cross the border."

"A book about _what?!" _Tyrillius shouted, causing several heads to turn.

"Shut up," Simon hissed, his face impassive to all passers-by, but his tone harsh.

Tyrillius waited until they were outside the city before he spoke again.

"Simon, I don't know how that got there. I don't even know what book you're talking about."

"Stop talking about this," Simon said, looking at him with an exasperated expression. "I don't really know what your angle is with this. I already told you I'm not going to tell anyone. I'm going to get us both safely back into Syndoc, and we can let this be behind us. I don't know whether or not you're involved, and I don't want to know."

Simon took a deep breath, and Tyrillius thought he looked suddenly very old. He didn't like it at all.

"All I know is that you're my brother, and I'm going to protect you," Simon finally continued. "Whatever it takes."

Simon's affirmation was meant to be encouraging, but it only added to the sickening weight in Tyrillius' stomach. His brother was acting on loyalty, not trust, and that realization hit him with the sting of betrayal.


	8. Chapter 8

**8 . 2 . 13**

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><p>Amethyst woke up in a place unfamiliar to her, and unlike others who have historically been in her situation — kidnapped from her bedroom by a cloaked fiend and whisked out the window — she did not instantly recall what had happened, nor did she shriek with fright at the strange surroundings. (In her defense, the lack of screaming was not due to any courage or presence-of-mind; she had been thoughtfully gagged by her captor.)<p>

Instead, she just looked around the room.

Her eyes were wide with panic, which presumably was helpful for the gaining of visual clues, but the room was too dark to see much. The only light seemed to come from a thin slit of an opening, which might have been a window, far away from wherever Amethyst was lying. She wiggled a little and tried to sit up, finding that her body was offensively stiff, but this shuffling soon came to an end when she cracked her head solidly against something.

She deduced from this soon-extinguished movement, however, that she had her back to a wall, and that there was something hard just above where she was lying horizontal on the ground. Perhaps it was a shelf, she thought, eyes watering in pain as she stretched her legs, wary of any other painful objects that might hamper her movement. Her tentative motions served her well; she was able to stretch her legs out to their full length, though they seemed to be bound at the ankles. Her knees whined piteously at the movement, but Amethyst had no thoughts to spare for her uncomfortable joints. She was far too busy pulling against the rope that restricted her hands from free movement, although that was to no avail. The rope had been tied securely, keeping her hands in front of her.

One last effort at freedom remained in her grasp — she began to inch forward, away from the wall, until she thought she would be clear of the shelf. She thought she was moving further than she was, however; her second try yielded the same result as the first, and she was sure she would have two lumps on her head in the morning. If it was still night now, anyway, which it might not be. She was beginning to realize that she had been drugged at some point during her party, so she could have slept for days.

That would explain why her body felt like it was starting up a revolution against her; in addition to her joints aching, her stomach was beginning to cramp and crinkle in a way most unfamiliar. She had not been without food for more than eight hours in her life, so the feeling of moderate or extreme hunger was a sensation as completely foreign to her as that of utter loneliness, or life-halting fear — that is to say, as foreign to her mind as this room was to her senses.

After a few more attempts at moving forward, Amethyst was finally able to move far enough that she could sit up without giving herself a concussion. The process of getting her protesting body to a sitting position without the ability to brace herself with her hands was a long one riddled with frustration and a few toppled jars that had been residing near the edge of the shelf. She soon realized that she was in some sort of cellar, and the strip of light she could see was not a window, but the crack underneath a door that lay up some stairs.

Now that she was in a sitting position, though, she wasn't sure how to proceed. Even if she managed to stand, feeling her way through the dark and up the stairs then fumbling the door open without proper use of her hands didn't seem likely to end in success. She flexed her fingers experimentally and found them to be stiff and slightly numb, owing to the firm rope tied about them.

Still, it was the only option she had. And since her captor didn't seem to be anywhere nearby — or else he was as deaf as her grandmother — it might be her only chance at escape. If she was in Folall still, or even Syndoc, the common people would probably recognize her, and she would be safe.

So, she heaved a huge, courage-giving breath and pushed herself upright. Her back was scraped mercilessly against the shelves (it seemed they extended to the ceiling), but she was able to remain upright with only minimal wobbling. Her joints cried out angrily as she took her first few shuffling steps, but they did not give out. Confidence buoying with every step, Amethyst was almost beginning to believe she might make it to the staircase when the door opened, and she was blinded by a lantern.

"Oh, you're awake. Good. I was tired of carrying you."

The voice was gruff, quiet, but these were qualities Amethyst imagined would be present in the voice of every vagabond intent on kidnapping or murdering a princess. What took her by surprise was that these qualities were shaping and influencing a _female _voice. Her cry of alarm and surprise was muffled by the rag that had been tied around her mouth, and the woman just chuckled as she descended the rest of the stairs.

"No screaming, eh? That's probably for the best. Come along, now. I've got the horses ready."

Amethyst, though she had been heading for the stairs just moments ago, now stepped back from them like they were covered in spiders.

"Don't play this game," the woman said tiredly. "I don't want to drug you again, but I will if I have to. You're only going to hurt yourself, shuffling around like that."

Amethyst was never one to back down from a challenge, and now that she was in a dark room, bound and gagged, and facing the one responsible for it, she was certainly not going to go along with anything this woman had to say. She kept backing up, with painful slowness since her ankles were still bound, but glaring still at the face she couldn't quite see past the brightness of the lantern.

She might have been scared — she had been tempted to be scared, and she really _should_ have been scared — but defiance had always been an automatic emotion for her. She was a princess, and she was as proud as they came. (Far prouder than she should have been, probably, for a relatively unknown princess in the small country of Folall. But often the smallest countries have the most strident self-regard.)

And in any case, arrogance was a good facade for bravery when she needed it most, so it worked out well for her most of the time.

Unfortunately, no amount of spite could save her from running into a large pot and knocking both herself and the ill-fated object to the ground as she attempted to escape the woman descending the stairs.

"I did warn you," the woman said with a sigh, stepping off the last stair and walking to where Amethyst was crumpled among the dangerous-looking shards of the clay pot.

Although a bit stunned from the fall, and a bit crestfallen that all of her hard work had left her once more on the ground, Amethyst still had possession of her faculties enough to continue to fight. She wriggled backward through the dust and sharp pieces of clay, kicking furiously in the woman's direction and further ripping what was left of her dress to shreds.

The woman set the lantern down a safe distance from Amethyst's thrashing legs, revealing her face to the princess at last. Her captor was a middle-aged woman, her hair in a shapeless, curled bundle that hung lank around her chin.

Then the woman held out her hands.

Amethyst continued to squirm back, away from the hands, but she suddenly found her movement restricted without the woman even touching her. It was as if a huge and crushing weight was slamming down on her limbs, and she was helpless to fight against it. She looked at the woman's face, in panic and confusion, but found nothing but tiredness there.

If Amethyst had given it any thought, she might have considered it odd that her kidnapper did not look worried, or angry, or even the least bit disturbed — but simply _tired._

However, Amethyst had other things on her mind: the vial the woman was pulling from a pocket on her dress, for instance. Understandably, the strange expression had quickly flitted out of her perception. (The observation might have been important, however, so it was quite unfortunate that Amethyst didn't notice. But, that is how the story unfolded, and the telling must be true.)

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><p>Once Amethyst's struggling had been stilled, the woman pulled a small bottle from her pocket. Knowing what was inside, she was careful to keep the jar away from herself as she uncorked it; she held it close to the princess' face instead. From the vial spilled a thick, dark cloud that ran down the woman's hand like a liquid and trailed across Amethyst's face. When the princess drew in a startled breath, she inhaled some of the vapor. Coughing, she tried to hold her breath — the smog tasted foul, and it settled in her lungs like ice.<p>

The woman watched passively, then corked the vial again. She knew the princess couldn't hold her breath forever, and the cloud would not dissipate until it was breathed in. Before long, the girl had inhaled all of the foggy substance, and her head lolled back in deep, peaceful sleep. Replacing the vial in the pocket of her dress, the woman then scooped Amethyst into her arms with surprising strength and stood up, careful to avoid the sharp pieces of the broken jar.

Whomever this house belonged to would not be pleased at the state of their cellar, the woman thought, but there wasn't time to fix it. She'd had less of a head start from the castle than she'd been expecting, so there was no time to lose. Now that they had a fresh horse, they could be on their way again. Hopefully they would be in Werinith by nightfall the next day. Getting across the border would tie up the royal guard for a few days at least, and from Werinith they could travel east, and then north into Syndoc. If the Folalli people were as paranoid as she'd hoped, the visiting prince would be under suspicion already — especially if they'd found that book — so in a few days the Syndocian border would be closed to Folalli military. And all that stalling would hopefully bring them up to seven days total, if everything worked out.

And everything normally did work out, she reflected, staring hard at the lantern until it wobbled clumsily from the ground and floated in front of her. She wasn't as good with this sort of magic as she was with curses and shapeshifting. She had less occasion to use it, really, since she normally had the ability to use her limbs for such things — but since Amethyst was not exactly a featherweight, she had her hands full, as it were. She tried to hold the lantern aloft in front of her as she climbed the stairs, but it kept knocking against the wall when she lost concentration, so she gave up and nestled it firmly onto an outstretched finger. (And she only burned herself twice, so she felt she deserved some commendation.)

She navigated artfully through the small house, keeping a sharp eye for any people who might have noticed the strange horse tethered outside, and slipped through the front door. No one was outside — and rightfully so. It was hours before dawn, and most everyone was sleeping. Everyone except her, and probably some royal guards who were trying to pick up her trail. Just in case they caught up with her, she took a moment to change Amethyst's appearance. It was a quick spell, and not a very good one, but it would do for now. And, it would make her a lot easier to carry.

The woman carefully balanced the sleeping child on the saddle, resting against the horse's neck, before swinging her leg over and settling herself neatly into the familiar leather. She blew out the lantern then, and tied it to the saddlebag. She could see well enough in the dark now that she was outside in the moonlight, and she didn't want to be more conspicuous than she already was.

The horse pranced nervously, unsure of this foreign woman on his back, but moved forward when she nudged him, nickering softly in the night. They rode south, the woman crouched over the saddle, and the child-princess pressed against her chest — a shadow in the night.

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><p>When Simon and Tyrillius reached Tanda — the nearest town along the road on the Syndocian side of the Pry — they stopped at the inn they always stopped at. The owner welcomed them warmly, though with some surprise at their lack of accoutrements. Something about the men's stony faces, however, told him not to bring up the subject. Instead, he merely supplied them with the finest linens and soaps in the town. (He sent Ricky to scour the city and find something worthy of the princes, at whatever price, and the boy arrived back with lavender-scented soap and soft, Shoserot bedsheets just as the princes finished their meal.)<p>

Tyrillius didn't have the chance to use the linens.

"We'll need to get an early start," Simon said, washing the dust from his face and drying it with a towel. "We should at least try to reach the palace before Father hears the news."

"Of course," Tyrillius said, taking his turn with the basin of soap and water.

It felt cool and refreshing on his still-burned skin. The lavender played with his sense of smell, bringing up an old memory of his mother tucking him into bed one night after a ball. He shook his head clear of it and dried his face on the towel.

Simon was already half asleep, too tired to do more than take off his shirt and collapse on the bed, but Tyrillius was wide awake. The adrenaline from his brief imprisonment and subsequent flight had not yet faded from his system. His heart was beating quick staccatos, whispering, _Run, Tyrillius, run, run. _He did not begrudge his body this frightened energy; he did not plan to be lying down long.

He didn't even undress, except to remove his boots. He made a mental apology to the innkeeper for getting road dust all over the clean sheets, but he didn't want to make more noise than he had to. Simon didn't question his odd behavior; it was possible that the prince didn't even notice his brother, as he was already dozing into an exhausted sleep.

As soon as his brother was unconscious, Tyrillius pulled on his boots and left the inn, telling the innkeeper he needed a walk as he left. Since he had not written his brother a note of any kind, that was the closest he would get to an, "I'm sorry." He knew Simon would understand. His initial panic at being unable to find his brother would settle into resignation when he realized what Tyrillius had done. It might even help him believe that Tyrillius was innocent. After all, why would a guilty man pursue his hired hand and thus risk exposing himself as the progenitor of the plot?

He saddled his horse, who looked disgruntled that he was being ridden again so soon, and set back along the road through the Pry, which was far more passable at night, when it was merely warm and dry instead of blazing. He wasn't sure where to begin looking, but something told him that the kidnapper would not have gone to Syndoc. It would be too obvious, too easy to track, since the Prince of Syndoc was under suspicion. And so he decided to ride into Goreth and see what news there was there — if no one lynched him first.

It really wasn't a very wise idea for Tyrillius to go riding off by himself, and he knew it. But he couldn't stand idle and let himself be accused of something he simply hadn't done — especially when it involved someone he cared about. Although he wasn't in love with Amethyst (At least not yet; he figured he'd have time for that later) he nonetheless valued her as both a friend and a future monarch. The curse had always been on her mind, as it had been on everyone else's, he was sure. And still she allowed herself to live her life bravely, experiencing what she could and befriending people without fear of the future. If this had anything to do with her curse — if the kidnapper had stolen her away merely to make the job of murder easier — then he was going to find her and keep that from happening. If anyone deserved to live a long life, without a constant fear, it was someone who already knew what fear felt like.

And so he rode on. He had no plan, no direction, and likely no common sense. But he did have a lot of heart, and that tends to recommend heroes to good ends.

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><p><em>This chapter is dedicated to the talented and beautiful <em>Captain Fantastic_ for constantly reminding me to stop moping and just post a chapter already. Reviews are always appreciated and quite honestly make my day so feel free to let me know what you're thinking. :-)_


	9. Chapter 9

**10 . 2 . 13**

_I'm going to try to update on Wednesdays for the forseeable future, but I already know this week is going to be crazy. So have this chapter early. Cheers._

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><p>It was now the morning after the ball, and the Folalli castle was in as much of a disarray as it had been the night before. The guests had all been questioned and then released to return to their homes, the grounds and castle had been thoroughly searched, and there were still no signs of what might have happened to the princess. No one had seen anyone suspicious coming or going, from the castle or from Amethyst's chamber. The only thing they had to go on was Micah's vague testimony (which was barely a testimony at all, as the only thing it proved was that someone had been in the hallway. And that much could have been guessed anyway.)<p>

Most of the guests left without questioning the situation, but Cynthia was in such a state that her servant could barely convince her to even get in the carriage.

"I can't leave until I know she is alright!" she bawled, eyes bloodshot and swollen; she had been crying all night, that much was evident. "She's my best friend in the entire world, and you expect me to just wait at home for news? I won't know for a week after the castle gets news!"

Earl looked around vainly, hoping that she could possibly be talking to anyone but him. He had a very important and time-sensitive mission to accomplish.

Unfortunately, he was the only one within earshot of the secondhand carriage and world-weary matron currently with a vise grip on Cynthia's arm. And clearly, she was not talking to the servant, since her hand was grasping for his. Earl took a discreet step backward (her fingers had nearly caught his vest pocket) and looked to the older woman for help.

She looked at him mutely, clearly ready to be relieved in her shift of weeping-lady-sitting. So, Earl checked his pocketwatch; he had ten minutes to spare, and this would be a good use of them. Careful to stay out of reach, he bobbed a bow quickly and cleared his throat.

"Lady, uh…"

"Warren," the woman helpfully supplied, tightening her grip on the slender arm.

"Lady Warren," Earl said with a quick nod of thanks at the servant. "I assure you, your mind will be more at ease in your own home. You can inform your family and wait for news in the company of loved ones."

"Mail doesn't come from the palace but once a week!" she argued, fresh tears leaking from her eyes. "She could be safe for seven days while I am still mad with grief!"

"Do you not think Princess Amethyst will send a special messenger to you, Lady Warren?" Earl said softly, his mouth curving into a sympathetic smile. "She cares deeply for you, and she knows you will be hysterical — if you'll pardon my frankness." He added that comment hastily, forgetting that honesty was not as welcome with all nobles as it was with Amethyst. Princess Amethyst. Amethyst.

Lady Warren's response pulled him from his mental dilemma.

"But suppose she is so grateful to be home that she forgets and—"

"My lady," Earl cut in smoothly, "you will have nothing to distract your mind if you are here. Amethyst will not forget about you."

The young girl stared at him hard.

"Are you — the party planner?" she asked suddenly.

Braced for another argument about why she should stay, the unrelated question caught Earl off-guard. He blinked, then replied affirmatively.

The girl narrowed her eyes, but not in an altogether unfriendly way. It was scrutinizing. Earl was again caught off-guard, so he smoothed his vest unnecessarily and checked the time once more. Five minutes to spare.

"See that I am informed, if you please," she said at last. Her words were shaky, but decided, and she muffled a sob with her other hand as she turned quickly to the carriage.

"Thanking you," the woman said in relief, her tiredness forming into a kind smile of thanks for Earl before she followed her mistress into the carriage.

Earl bowed slightly to her, checked his watch once more, and hurried away.

As for the investigation, there was no other evidence, and no other hint as to how the kidnapper had gotten in or out. The window in Amethyst's room was unlocked, but as the wall dropped straight down three floors from there, it was unlikely that anyone had taken the princess that way. Someone would have seen the rope. If not the window, however, they must have used a door and escaped unnoticed by any of the servants — an impossible feat. An entire night of investigation turned up no unlocked doors or windows and no clues as to how they had escaped.

The only thing that _was_ clear was that the kidnapper had escaped, somehow, with the princess, and he was only getting further away by the minute. Since there was no news to be found in the castle, then, Micah was heading up the official search party to track the kidnapper. The soldiers deployed the night before had not found anything in the surrounding towns, which meant that the kidnapper had fled quickly, and with a specific destination in mind. Probably heading back to Syndoc, or to a place far enough away from a town to—

Micah was already cursing himself for not heading off at once instead of trying to orchestrate the investigation at the castle. He, above everyone else, felt exclusively responsible for the princess' kidnapping, and he was adamant that he be assigned to this task, and take with him only the best and most highly trained guards and trackers.

It was for this reason, then, that he was arguing with Earl.

"You are absolutely not coming with me," Micah said staunchly. "I don't care if you got permission from the queen herself."

"I did, actually," Earl said politely, pulling a signed edict from his pocket, which the bodyguard snatched from him and inspected suspiciously.

"How did you get this?" he asked in bewilderment, squinting at the words on the parchment more closely to be sure the man wasn't trying to pull the wool over his eyes.

It was definitely an order signed by the queen, and the order seemed to be — by what he could make out of the curly script — one that demanded Earl Brandworthy go along with the contingent Micah had arranged. After a few more moments of squinting, he decided that it seemed legitimate enough. Although why Queen Opal thought it a good idea to send the _Royal Event Coordinator_ on a search and rescue mission was beyond him.

"By the will of the queen," Earl said, giving no further explanation.

"You'll be useless in the field," Micah said, turning his attention from the puzzling slip of paper. "There's no point in your going at all. You'll slow us down."

"I'm a commoner," Earl said, seeing the flint in Micah's eyes and speaking calmly. "I know these people in a way that you never could. And even if you did — you're a guard now. They won't trust you."

Micah couldn't deny the man's logic. The clanking of armor set the peasant's teeth on edge even before the guards came into sight; he knew that much.

"I can get information from them you never could," Earl said, once his first argument had sunk in. "Little things make a big difference if the kidnapper is clever."

Although there certainly weren't many kidnappings in Folall on a yearly basis, there was an extensive collection of royal crimes that were meticulously recorded and studied by those either too interested or too bored for their own good. Earl knew Micah had read the histories as part of his promotion, and Earl — well, it had been a rainy day, and nothing spices up a dreary afternoon like intrigue and murder. In those records, it had always been the smallest clue that had solved the mystery or led to the killer.

"I'm going," Earl said firmly, after a pause. "It's already been arranged. I won't slow anything down."

Micah gave him a long, searching look.

"I don't know what you're on about," he finally said, handing the paper back to Earl. "But if the paper says so, there's nothing I can do about it. But you'd better not get in the way. I'm going to find the princess, and I'm going to find her alive, if it's in my dying breath."

"We only have the same goal," Earl said, making brief eye contact with the guard. "I promise you."

* * *

><p>When Amethyst woke up again, it was to the peculiar sensation of bouncing and jostling. She was very disoriented, and adding to this disorientation was the sudden realization that she was a lot <em>smaller<em> than she used to be. Smaller than she had been in a very long time. She jerked upright, hitting her head against something behind her, and a woman's voice grunted, though she seemed otherwise unharmed by Amethyst's head.

"Awake again?" she said.

Amethyst didn't immediately respond; she was still trying to wrap her mind around whether this was a continuation of her strange dreams, or if she had in fact opened her eyes to reality.

"Well, you're not kicking this time," the woman said. "That's an improvement. I don't like drugging you, you know. I don't hate you as much as you seem to think I do."

Amethyst wanted to ask why she had kidnapped her, then, but the gag was still firmly in her mouth.

"Are you hungry?" the woman asked. "Just nod or shake your head."

Amethyst had to think about it for a moment. Her stomach was quick to make sure she responded correctly; it growled ferociously. She nodded her head vigorously, and the woman chuckled.

"I'll get something from the saddlebag when we stop next, and you can eat it as we ride. You slept through breakfast."

Amethyst nodded distractedly, looking down at her body with some confusion. Surely she was not seeing what she thought she was seeing. But a few quick, distinctive motions with her arms was enough to convince her that the childish limbs tied in front of her were, in fact, her own.

"I couldn't keep dragging you around as a full-grown teenager," the woman said, apparently noticing her odd twitching. "I'll change you back if you stop fighting me."

Amethyst didn't like the give-and-take the woman was suggesting; she narrowed her eyes. If this kidnapper thought she was going to compromise herself into her own death, she didn't know the first thing about her.

"On the other hand," the woman continued, "maybe I'll keep you like that for a while. That way if you do decide to run or kick, I don't run the risk of losing you."

Amethyst didn't pay the woman any mind; she was looking around to see if she recognized the countryside. It was a useless task, as she had never been outside the castle, much less Folall, but she had read about the surrounding countries and their terrain. And she could tell from the sun, situated overhead but slightly to their left, that they were headed south.

"Actually, I might just turn you into a frog," the woman mused, clearly unaffected by Amethyst's stony silence. (To her credit, Amethyst's gag made it difficult to tell whether the princess was being reticent or scared. The woman knew enough about Amethyst to guess that it was the former, but she didn't much care.) "I've had great luck turning royalty into animals. They almost always get turned back again."

Amethyst couldn't help that her interest piqued on that statement. Was this the dreaded witch, the one who caused havoc throughout the northern countries but was never caught? Stories of the Credin and Acine families came suddenly back to mind. Prince Joseph who had been turned into a snake, Princess Geraldine who had been transformed into a deer, and even Prince Thomas (though he was not from the north) who had been turned into a frog. They had all been restored, miraculously, but not before coming close to a tragic and accidental death at the hand of their own countrymen.

"Thinking a little more seriously about not kicking?" the woman said. It might have been a cruel-sounding statement, but for the humor hiding beneath her tone.

Amethyst twisted around in the saddle and glared, willing that her thoughts would somehow transmit themselves into the woman's head.

"Perhaps not," the woman said. "You're a spiteful little thing, aren't you? But I suppose I knew that. You even screamed when I showed up at your christening. Not an upset scream, mind, but an aggravated one. I don't think you like that I took the attention away from you."

Amethyst had no idea what she was talking about, and it showed on her face. The woman's eyebrows arched, disappearing into her curly hair.

"Don't tell me they didn't tell you about the curse," she said, examining Amethyst's face. "I hate it when they don't know. There's always so many more tears..."

Then Amethyst understood — the story of her christening had never been told to her in completion, but as the woman spoke the pieces she had finally clicked together. The infamous Witch Of The North must have been the one to curse her — no wonder her parents hadn't told her. That was much more frightening than anything she could have come up with. (Incidentally, she had always theorized it was a band of rogue fairies who broke into the festivities and cursed the human princess so they could usurp the throne. Although why they would choose death by a spindle, she couldn't say.)

"There it is," the woman said in obvious relief, seeing the comprehension dawn on Amethyst's face. "There's one less story I have to tell before I kill you."

Though her head was whirling with the gravity of the new information, one thing was clear to Amethyst: she had to get away from this woman. No matter how disarming or frighteningly normal she appeared, she was obviously prepared to kill her. And no person, even a kind and patient one, would wait around for their own deaths. So Amethyst, being neither kind nor patient, was even less likely.

With a swift and unpremeditated action, Amethyst threw all her weight to the left, intending to disrupt her balance enough to fall off the horse. Although she would be battered and perhaps broken, she would nonetheless be away from the Witch — which was as safe as she could hope to be at the moment.

Unfortunately, the Witch seemed to have learned a thing or two in all her kidnapping exploits; Amethyst found her legs tied neatly to little loops in the saddle. Her jostling around only succeeded in making the horse shake his head at her in annoyance.

"Don't make me drug you again, Amethyst," the woman said, her tone stern and motherly. "I was hoping to have a chat with you at some point. Anyway, carting around unconscious people is not my favorite pastime. Awfully boring."

Amethyst was still disgruntled that her brilliant plan had come to nothing, but she wondered just how socially-starved this woman must be if she considered a one-sided conversation with a gagged prisoner to be a "chat" of any kind.

"If I wasn't so sure you would scream, I'd take the gag off," the woman said, as if reading her thoughts. "As it is, we're too close to a town. We'll be riding through, but I don't need you drawing any attention to us."

Amethyst was already beginning to think of ways to get the townspeople's attention when the woman's voice interrupted her once more.

"What's your favorite animal?"

Amethyst glared at her. The woman shrugged.

"Suit yourself," she said, and promptly turned Amethyst into a squirrel.


	10. Chapter 10

**20 . 2 . 13**

* * *

><p>For all of Micah's complaining, the bodyguard soon found himself in grudging debt to the Royal Event Coordinator.<p>

While the guards were questioning the innkeepers and taverns, Earl wandered about the town chatting with the farmers and merchants. It was in this manner that he discovered the direction that Amethyst's captor had fled. The information led from a seemingly-unrelated argument between a mother and son that Earl happened upon while discussing the trade routes with the woman's husband.

"How do you explain that mess by the stairs?" the woman shouted. "My best and largest clay pot, ruined! And not just smashed, but trampled after that!"

"I don't know what you're talking about, mother!" the boy cried, his ears and cheeks the brightest of red. "It wasn't like that when I went down to get potatoes yesterday, and today—"

"And today your father and I return home from visiting your _elderly grandmother_ to find that you've been prancing around down there, possibly with that good-for-nothing—"

"Leave Reegan out of this!" the boy shouted back defensively, though his cheeks grew even redder.

"The general store owner's daughter," the husband supplied helpfully, looking at Earl. "He's got an eye for her. Laura doesn't approve, as you can see."

Earl just nodded, observing the boy as the argument continued. He was blushing hotly and denying all accusations, and it seemed to Earl that he really was innocent. There was something about his embarrassment that reeked of confusion and panic, not shame.

In a moment that was perhaps a leap of logic, he recalled that one of the farmers he'd been talking with mentioned his horse had gone missing. He'd figured it ran away and would be back in a few days — this wasn't the first time that particular horse had gotten a hankering for the open road — but Earl was beginning to think the two things were connected.

When another horse was found wandering in the fields to the west of town, Earl was all but convinced. The kidnapper probably switched mounts there, leaving behind the horse he had ridden from the castle. The harder part was getting Micah to pay attention to him. Thankfully at that moment he ran across something a little more tangible, which would at least get Micah's attention long enough to listen to his other ideas.

"Micah," Earl said, tapping the man on the shoulder and adjusting his grip on the new evidence.

When Micah didn't turn around, it occurred to him that the man wouldn't be able to feel it through the suit of armor. He spoke again, louder.

_"Micah. _I think I found something."

The bodyguard had been discussing all the evening's visitors with the innkeeper; he turned from his conversation with not a little impatience. Innkeepers were usually savvy to the goings-on in the town, Micah knew, and as such it was the best place to get information. Earl was only slowing down the process.

"What is it?" he asked shortly.

"I think they went south," Earl said, mincing no words. He knew Micah only tolerated his presence because he was forced to, and he didn't particularly want to anger the man further.

"Well, I think they went east," Micah said. "What does it matter what we think? That's why we're looking for evidence. If we're going to catch this person before Princess Amethyst is injured or worse — assuming she's not already — we need to find their trail."

"No," Earl said, realizing his error in speech. "That's what I'm saying. A merchant just came in to town, saying he found this by the side of the road. He was going to repair it and sell it, but I asked to borrow it first."

Earl held up a lantern, clearly broken. Micah took it from him, examining it.

"Is that it?" he asked, running his hands along the various pieces.

"A horse went missing last night, and another one was found wandering around outside of town," Earl added. "And look at the craftsmanship of the lantern."

Micah could easily see, even before Earl pointed this out, that it was not from Folall, Syndoc, or Werinith. And, unless it had been lying along the road for days (which was unlikely, as a good lantern is hard to come by, and no one would leave one lying there) it had fallen from its owner's horse sometime in the night — an owner that was clearly much more foreign than anyone they could expect in Folall. That was enough to convince Micah that Earl was on to something. Even if he did still think that Prince Tyrillius was behind it somehow.

"Where did he find the lantern?" Micah asked, leaving the inn without a word of farewell to the owner.

Earl turned and thanked the man himself before following Micah out and answering his question.

"Just south of Goreth," he replied. "Near the Werinith border. And you really should get in the habit of thanking people who were agreeing to help you. This is why they don't like you, you know."

"They should be grateful to be used in any way they can to aid in the rescue of the princess," Micah said. His words were haughty, but he looked confused at the concept Earl was trying to introduce. "I would be."

"Well, you are a very unique individual," Earl said, mostly under his breath. If Micah heard him, he gave no sign. He called the troops to his side, and they were soon galloping toward Werinith.

* * *

><p>The contingent of guards rode hard along the road to the south, heading toward Werinith and keeping an eye out for any further sign of Amethyst or the kidnapper. Even Earl couldn't get anything out of the townspeople along the way, however. There had simply not been anyone suspicious passing through town in the last day — and Earl was sure to talk to the people who would most be likely to notice.<p>

Grumpy old men, curious children, and gossipy mothers were all thoroughly questioned (under the guise of friendly conversation, of course; Earl knew no other way of operating). They all just shrugged and listed off the usual sorts of merchants and travelers in pairs and small groups. No teenage girl with auburn hair had been spotted — although they were looking sharp for Amethyst as it was, so they would have noticed that — nor even a teenage boy of about her size, in case the kidnapper tried to disguise her in that way.

The only remarkable traveler anyone had noticed was a mother with a young girl, riding astride one horse. The grumpy old man noted that it was too much weight for one horse, although his wife postulated that they were probably too poor to afford another one, and in too much of a hurry to walk. But at that moment, Micah called to Earl, and the Royal Event Coordinator begged his leave, all the while unaware that he had been staring the truth in the face.

He's not to be blamed, however. Humans are distinctly unaware of magic until it is forcibly brought to their attention. This is probably why witches, sorcerers, and fairies have been so able to put their fingers in many human plans and cause mayhem. It is only when confronted with a curse or a spell that humans suddenly remember magic's existence.

Unfortunately for Amethyst, this confrontation would not happen for a little while longer, and not to the party that would be of most use to her. No, the _prince_ would be the first of the humans to be reminded of magic's existence. Though it would happen quite by accident. Even the witch didn't mean for it to — (that story will come about in its own time. But, we really must keep up with Tyrillius if are ever to get there at all. So, to the prince.)

After traveling through the night in order to cross the desert, Prince Tyrillius arrived in Goreth. He was very tired when he arrived, but sleeping was far from his mind. The people that recognized him were giving him looks that would melt iron, and he felt certain that if he asked for a bed they would offer him a place to sleep from which he would not arise.

Instead, he devoted several hours to searching the town and listening for any clues as to the kidnapper's direction. Tyrillius arrived there before the guards passed through on their quest to the Werinith border, so there was no news to speak of. The disappointing lack of even gossipy theories, plus the not-altogether-unexpected lack of physical evidence left Tyrillius soon wondering why he had even bothered to come back. (He knew, of course, why he did, but his pride and sensibility were at odds with each other, and his lack of sleep was bludgeoning them both over the head with a hammer. The babble of instruction that followed was thus appropriately confused and irritable.)

Whether from this or some other source, Tyrillius felt a constant pulling toward the south all the while he was searching Goreth. He couldn't explain the sensation, nor justify it in any way. When no other evidence turned up, then, Tyrillius mounted his horse and headed for the southern gate of the city. There was nothing to lose, anyway, and they would probably be more friendly in Werinith than they were here. This was as close as he could get to justifying to himself why he was following a vague feeling.

"I could probably rent a room without being murdered," he said to the horse when they were safely out of town. "That's an advantage of heading south."

The horse, having been taken from his comfortable stall and ridden for a solid ten hours without so much as a carrot for reward, did not care for his reasoning. He flicked his ear at the prince, hoping that it conveyed an appropriate amount of righteous ire.

The prince was not terribly familiar with horses, however; the gesture was lost on him.

"I suppose it makes sense that the kidnapper might have headed south," Tyrillius continued to muse. Possibly to keep himself awake. He was tottering dangerously on the saddle, the horse noted with some apprehension. "The border to Syndoc is likely to close soon, what with the business about me being a suspect."

The horse (whose name was Booker, by the way, although Tyrillius didn't know this) still had very little interest in the situation. He just hoped the Prince remembered to bring him a treat once they were at the inn. So focused was he on the possibility of rest and a carrot, in fact, that he had no issue keeping to the road, even when the Prince began to fall asleep in the saddle.

Tyrillius woke up a bit later when Booker snorted and shook his head, nearly dislodging the prince from his seat.

The boy was disoriented; he hadn't realized he'd fallen asleep. The last thing he remembered was crossing the Werinith border, and now the horse had stopped pleasantly in front of a stable that seemed to belong to an inn.

"Can I stable your horse for you, sir?"

The young boy asking the question looked up at Tyrillius with some curiosity. The prince's clothes were fine — a little too fine for northern Werinith, if truth be told, though he had changed into less flashy riding clothes before leaving the Folalli castle. That coupled with the totally bewildered look on his face made him a vaguely interesting character.

"Yes, please," he finally said, dismounting the horse and digging in his pocket for a coin to give the boy.

When his feet hit the ground, his body reminded him of how infrequently he rode. His legs were stiff beyond reason, and his feet seemed to be indignant that they were again being asked to carry his weight.

"Long ride, sir?" the boy said, taking the coin that Tyrillius had finally found and looking at it closely.

"Very long," Tyrillius answered, groaning and stretching his arms over his head in an attempt to loosen every muscle in his body. (Unsurprisingly, this was not successful. But it did make him feel momentarily better.)

"Unc' Em will give you a place to put your feet up," the boy said with a helpful smile, pocketing the foreign currency and nodding toward the inn door. "I'll make sure your horse gets a proper rub-down."

"Thank you," Tyrillius said genuinely, then headed to the inn, bag in hand.

(Booker was much more grateful than Tyrillius, though that was to be expected. The boy, as promised, did rub him down quite vigorously. And, being much more attuned to the subtler moods of horses, the boy also made sure Booker was given plenty of food and a few sugar cubes.)

The inn was situated at the end of a long row of small shops and houses, each of them distinctive in color but similar in make and style. The inn was a dusky blue that looked almost purple, and it seemed to be well-kept, though evidently old. The sign outside named it "The Purple Jay," and there was a somewhat recognizable painting of the angry blue bird beneath the words, though the blue had been replaced with a vibrant purple.

He pushed the door open and found the inside bustling. It was late afternoon, and it seemed that most everyone was done with work already. Men were gathered around the bar, laughing and discussing things in boisterous voices — though Tyrillius noted that they didn't seem to be drinking anything. There was also a group of women gathered in the corner either sewing or playing cards.

The Purple Jay was a local gathering place for everyone in the town of Haven, and the farmers that lived within five miles. Unlike many other bars or pubs, the Jay served as a place for both men and women to meet up and pass around the events of the day. This was due to the oddly-inclusive culture of Werinith (men and women often both held jobs, and children were found at home with their father or brother as often as they were with their mother or sister). There was of course also the problem that everyone was pretty much related in the town, and they all liked to meet with each other. The simple lack of open space to meet in the town left the Jay as the only viable place to meet, protected from the elements.

Tyrillius was a bit surprised to see so many people, of both sexes, but he was too tired to much care. He headed straight to the man who was cleaning glasses and asked him about a room.

"Sure thing," the man replied with a friendly smile, putting down the sparkling glass and holding out a hand. "Em's the name."

"Ty," the prince responded, shaking the man's hand. (The name-alteration was not altogether an attempt to disguise his identity, although that was part of the goal. In case the prejudice had spread this far south. He was looking forward to sleep unencumbered by nightmares of his own murder.)

The man did not seem at all suspicious. He merely directed Tyrillius to his room. The youth mounted the stairs like a man half-dead and, after walking into the wrong room (and apologizing to its occupant) he located his own room. All the weight of the past twenty-four hours hit him at once, then, and he barely was able to lock the door before he passed out on the bed.


	11. Chapter 11

**21 . 4 . 13**

**I have not been following through on my Wednesday updating plan, clearly. Life has been a bit monumentous, and trying to focus on writing is difficult. However, I am going to sit here until it is time for church and organize a few more chapters so I can update weekly for a while. Thanks for sticking with me!**

* * *

><p>Once asleep on the (surprisingly) comfortable bed in The Purple Jay, however, Tyrillius was not able to completely rest. The same feeling that had drawn him south, though he had no firm reason to ride south, was stirring around in his mind, affecting his dreams. He was not one prone to odd dreams usually, and — though his recent experiences might excuse anxious or frightening dreams — these dreams were nothing like he'd ever experienced. In the midst of whatever scenario his mind had seen fit to dream about, little snippets of conversation and landscape would appear and disappear with no rhyme or reason. Always it was of a woman, middle-aged and with curly hair, talking to a girl who appeared to be the spitting image of Amethyst at age six.<p>

Why he would imagine Amethyst at such a tender age he couldn't imagine, and as for who the woman was he had even less of an idea. All he knew was that when he woke, he had an even more pressing feeling that he needed to ride northeast. After a late dinner — he awoke after the sun had set — he rode off in that direction, still without any logical reasoning for doing so.

This action did not go unnoticed.

The men and women in the Jay found the quiet young stranger quite intriguing, and they all had different theories as to why he would be coming and going at such odd hours. Some thought he might be a messenger, judging by his fancy clothes, but others refuted that idea; all the messengers who usually passed through Haven were jocund and loquacious fellows, happy to bring them the latest news from court. Some thought he might be a lord's son of Werinith or Syndoc, who had been separated from his party somehow. Others thought he might be a squire on his way to his knighting ceremony. (Although it was not quite the season for knightings, the elder men pointed out.)

It was not, however, Haven's opinion of him that was the most important — or the most grave. Now in the southern regions of Syndoc, it was the witch who had begun to realize that they were being followed. Of course, she had expected to be trailed by guards who found her inevitable slip-ups and clues accidentally left behind. She had successfully ranged through enough towns and fields, however, to ensure they wouldn't catch her before the princess was safely dead.

The lone horseman, however, was not _following_ her path. He was anticipating it. At first she thought it was a coincidence, but when she changed the roads she was taking to the safe house in eastern Syndoc and the horseman changed his route without hesitation, she knew there was more to it. Her magic was not infinite, however, and it took the better part of a day to mutter spell after spell, casting about vaguely until she found the right one — one that would tell her how the man was following them so closely. (In fact, if he kept at this rate, he would cross paths with them just before they reached the safe house.)

In all of her casting, the witch finally got a glimpse of the man's face, and recognized Tyrillius in an instant. Upon discovering the identity of the horseman, everything else made sense.

"Blast that prince!" she said suddenly, making Amethyst jump and the horse snort indignantly. "I've got to get into the habit of undoing spells. I should have known that one would come back to bite me."

"Is Prince Tyrillius following us?" Amethyst said, flattered, though with some surprise.

"The absolute dunce," the woman said by way of reply. "I don't know what he expects to do." (A fair thought, as Tyrillius didn't know himself.)

"Save me, obviously," Amethyst said, rolling her eyes. Then, she suddenly remembered what the witch had said in the first place. "Wait, when did you put a spell on him?"

"On the road, on the way to the castle," the witch muttered distractedly. "It was the only way I could get in. Now stop talking so I can think."

Amethyst considered pressing the issue to distract the witch, but the dangerous furrow of the woman's eyebrows reminded her that she was, after all, a murderer. And with this new development, she may decide that killing Amethyst right away is the best solution. Best not to push her too far.

Nonetheless, the thought of someone coming after them was buoying to Amethyst's flagging spirits. Though she had, over the course of the past day or so, graduated to speaking terms with her captor, it had been a discouraging acquaintance. It had seemed that the woman had thought of everything, and that Amethyst was just going to die a perfectly undignified death, after all. Even though Tyrillius might not have been the man she would have chosen to save her (what other man she might have chosen is not significant) she would take what she could get. He was not a coward, and he was adequate at fencing — she remembered being impressed with his skills in the royal tournament the year previous. Assuming he could incapacitate the witch before she cast any spells, he had a fair chance.

In any case, the several hours she had spent as a squirrel had been enough to convince her that being kidnapped was not as romantic as the books made it seem it would be. A hero of any kind was still a hero. And she felt quite entitled to one after that escapade.

What really bothered her, though, was that the woman who had kidnapped her seemed deceptively … un-evil. She was gentle, kind, and comforting. Yet, for all her pleasantries and general proof of sanity, she never called into question whether or not she would be killing Amethyst in five days. About that, she was unwavering and unapologetic. Amethyst had tried everything from shouting to begging to tears, but the woman was unmoved. Amethyst finally had to comfort herself in knowing that, if she was going to die, she was going to die holding the hand of someone who reminded her of a comforting fairy godmother.

That thought stuck with her the rest of the long, long day of riding. They didn't stop until Amethyst had already fallen asleep and woken up several times with her back pressed to the witch's chest. By then, her mind was blurry and her speech slurred with tiredness. The next day, she barely recalled anything that had happened past sunset. This was fortunate for the witch, because it forestalled any questions that might have arisen from the princess the next morning.

"You're like my fairy godmother," Amethyst sighed as the witch tucked a blanket around her curled form.

The woman just laughed. The laugh was sad, the kind of laugh that held a story. Her hand moved like it would stroke the princess' hair, but she pulled it back and turned away.

"I'm the fairy godmother's worst enemy," was all she said, before blowing out the lantern and casting an unnecessary spell around them to blind any odd passers-by. Amethyst was asleep almost before she heard the woman's reply.

* * *

><p>Tyrillius had given up on justifying his actions to either himself or Booker after that afternoon at The Purple Jay, and he relegated himself to the confines of his own mind as he rode, forever following the nagging tug at the back of his mind.<p>

It was not hard to stay in his own mind, however. The images and conversations that had plagued his dreams steadily moved to his daydreams, then his passing thoughts. The only differences in these images was that Amethyst was soon restored to her proper appearance, giving Tyrillius the idea that he was, somehow, seeing the princess and her kidnapper.

As with most humans, magic was not the first thing that occurred to him. Insanity was the first thing, actually, but in the interest of boosting his self-esteem, he decided to explore other options. Magic seemed to be the only other plausible option. And, he argued, the princess' situation was all brought about by a _curse_. Was it really so far-fetched that he, the prince expected to marry her, would be embroiled in the mess of magic somehow?

As if to prove his theory — though it was not, in fact, true — the images and conversations he saw began to confirm that following the nagging feeling in the back of his mind was leading him closer to Amethyst. The woman became increasingly more agitated, and their days of riding became longer. Additionally, the scenery he saw in these images would often strike him as deja vu when he passed them on his own path.

It was an altogether odd sensation. He rarely trusted his gut feelings on anything, preferring to think through things logically and decide based on the pros and cons. However, it could not be denied that, assuming these visions were true, he was on the right path. That doubt cropped up occasionally, but he kept pushing it back. After all, what else could he do? Go home, where his family wasn't sure whether or not he was involved? Go back to Folall, where he would almost assuredly be killed or tortured by the townspeople? Go back to the castle in secret and try to follow clues from there?

No, there was no way to proceed but to follow the path he had set out for himself on the night he left his brother in the inn. He may not be accomplishing anything now, but he doubted he could make any headway in a different course of action before it was too late.

But by far, the oddest part of the entire situation was when the woman began speaking to him in his visions. The first time it happened, he nearly fell off his horse, which Booker did not much appreciate.

* * *

><p>"I know you can probably hear me," the witch said, looking pointedly at an offending cloud, though Amethyst didn't think that was whom she was really addressing. Although who she could possibly be talking to in the sky was beyond the princess' comprehension. Perhaps the woman really was crazy. "I'm warning you now to leave off. You can't stop me, and you'll only end up getting yourself killed. Everyone does."<p>

She laughed that laugh again — the laugh that told a story.

"What are you doing?" Amethyst asked, raising an eyebrow. She surmised that the witch was attempting to speak with Tyrillius. "He can't hear you. Unless he's really that close."

She peeked over her shoulder hopefully, half-expecting Tyrillius to come bounding out of the slowly-passing forest with a gleaming sword and a battle cry.

"He might be able to," the woman said with a shrug. "Magic is tricky sometimes. I can see him occasionally, especially as he gets closer, so it probably works in reverse."

"You can see him?" Amethyst said with interest. "Is he alright then?"

"Surprisingly, yes," the woman answered, her tone slightly disbelieving and a bit offensive. "I thought the scanty evidence I had time to plant would be enough to keep him locked up for a few days, at least. Maybe even executed."

"You _framed _Tyrillius?" Amethyst said in horror. "Do you _know _how paranoid my family is?"

"Oh, quite," the woman said, with a bit too much relish. Her dispassionate smile was unsettling. "I've been watching you, you know."

"That is not something I wanted to hear," Amethyst said, now thoroughly unsettled.

"Come come," the woman chided. "I had to keep an eye on you. Filling a curse is not as easy as one would suspect. That's why I had to kidnap you at all. There was no way to get a spindle into your castle, even with my magical shielding. Your parents paid good money to keep any sewing icons out of the castle; those fiari wishes are nothing to mess with."

Amethyst didn't respond; the mention of the curse reminded her that she now only had four days to live, unless she could find a way to escape. Odd, really, that her life had been reduced to four risings and settings of the sun. Such a small number — frighteningly small. The deep gloom, the voice that whispered that she had wasted her life, the sticky darkness, reached out for her again, but she shook it off. If she only had four days, she would have to make the most of them. As her activities were much limited by her captivity, she could at least find the answers to some questions she'd been wondering for a long time.

"Why spindles?" she asked.

The woman looked at her, then tucked a curl behind her ear and sighed.

"I don't know, really. I suppose it was the first thing to come to my mind. I woke up late that morning, see, and didn't have time to fully plan out the day's events. I knew death would be involved, but the spindle just sort of happened of its own accord."

"Why do you talk about this like it's some sort of story — some sort of game?" Amethyst snapped. That was the one most unsettling part about the witch, the thing that made Amethyst more sure that she _was _actually out of her mind. No one could talk about death like that — no, about _murder_ like that — like it was an activity between breakfast and tea.

"It _is_ a story," the woman said, nudging the horse faster. "They're all stories."

"Everyone you've cursed?" Amethyst pressed, anger still infecting her tone. "All the innocent lives you've taken?"

"All of them," the woman said. "And they were all beautiful." Her tone was calm, too calm. As always.

"Then why did you _kill _them?" Amethyst said, aware that she was shouting now. "Why are you going to kill me? What has anyone ever done to deserve that?"

"Nothing at all." This statement was barely able to be heard over the sound of the horse's hooves.

"Then don't do it!" Amethyst cried in frustration. Nothing made sense about this woman. If she had been expecting a villain with clear motives or blind hatred, she was severely disappointed. The more she talked with the witch, the less she understood her.

True to form, the woman stopped answering her then, and Amethyst soon resorted to simply crying, as silently as she could, until there were no more tears. It didn't make her feel better, but it kept her from getting any more frustrated, because she couldn't talk when she was crying that hard.

The woman took a deep breath to resettle herself. They always got pitiful and weepy near the end. It was only four more days. Then, it would all be over for another year.


	12. Chapter 12

**1 . 5 . 13**

* * *

><p><em>"Charlotta!"<em>

_The call came from downstairs, and Charlotta glanced at her sister before she stood and headed for the door._

_"Coming, mother!" she called._

_She felt Cherilyn's eyes on her back and had to resist the urge to turn and stick her tongue out. She was almost fifteen, but her twin always seemed to bring out the worst in her._

_"Charlott—oh, there you are," her mother said as she flounced down the stairs._

_The woman's face was lined with wrinkles from the sun, making her appear much older than she was. Her hair, however, was still a luxurious raven black, attesting to her relative youth. Her eyes were also young — a lively brown color that was now sparkling with excitement._

_"Yes, mother?" Charlotta said sweetly, curtsying._

_"The prince is coming to our harvest celebration," her mother said, hardly able to contain her enthusiasm._

_Charlotta couldn't help a gasp of her own, her hand fluttering to her chest, to her mouth, then back to her chest._

_"Mother!"_

_"This is our chance, Charlotta," the woman said, grasping her daughter's hand in an expression of unusual warmth. "He'll surely remember you from the ball, with a few reminders. And you're the only girl of any rank in the area, so he'll be sure to stay in your company for propriety's sake at least."_

_"Who will?"_

_The question came from the top of the stairs, where Cherilyn stood with one hand on the rail, posed to descend. She was the spitting image of Charlotta, from the shining black hair to the regrettably-freckled complexion almost completely hidden under artful application of make-up._

_"No one," her mother said, barely glancing at the girl at the top of the stairs. "I didn't call for you, Cherilyn."_

_Charlotta's eyes lingered a little longer — long enough to see the hurt flash in her sister's eyes before it was completely cloaked in her usual guarded expression: cool uncaring._

* * *

><p>Booker whinnied then, waking Tyrillius with a jolt. He shook his head as he stood, stretching out the stiffness in his back from sleeping on the ground. Although he had found a spot that was somewhat covered in moss, the tree roots seemed intent on attacking his back with a vengeance.<p>

"I had a weird dream," Tyrillius explained to the horse, yawning. "Thanks for waking me up. Don't know what it was all about, really."

The horse eyed him hopefully, and the prince dug around in the saddlebag for an apple he'd gotten in the last town they'd passed.

"Here you are, eh?" he said, carefully holding the apple in his flat palm so he wouldn't get bitten. "What do you think of dreams, hm? I never put much stock in them, personally. But this one was— well, I don't know. Probably just a fairy having a trick on me."

Booker munched the apple happily, having no advice to give the prince — even if he could talk. (He was not bothered by bad dreams, usually, and so could be no help.)

_"Time to get moving," the woman said. "Come on, Amethyst. Up and at 'em, or I'll turn you back into a squirrel."_

_Amethyst groaned and curled up tighter._

_"And a good morning to you as well, if you're listening," the woman continued, addressing the sky. "Which I suppose you are. Sorry about the bad dreams — probably just a side-effect of the magic."_

The woman paused then, looking pensive and serious. Most of the time, she looked guarded and deceptively playful, but now she looked far older than the wrinkles in her face gave her license to.

_"I'll kill you too, if I have to."_

"I'm not so sure you will," Tyrillius muttered back, unsure if she could hear him, but needing to say it for his own sake as well.

_"Don't underestimate me," the woman warned._

Tyrillius thought she sounded more desperate than intimidating, though. Like Amethyst, he had his own set of curiosities about this woman. He may not have had a lot of experiences with witches and other Persons Of Nefarious Intent, but he was fairly certain that these sorts of people did not usually chat amiably with their victims or — if Tyrillius was interpreting her actions correctly — actually try to ease the anxiety of the girls they kidnapped. There was something more to this woman.

"I'm not underestimating you," he replied, mounting his horse and starting along the road once more. "I think you might be overestimating yourself."

_"Botheration!" she exclaimed. "I've got to start waking up sooner. He's already on the road. Amethyst! I'm turning you into a squirrel on the count of three! One… two…"_

Tyrillius chuckled. He could hear everything that was going on, but the images were only coming in flashes. It was unnerving, hearing and seeing things in front of him that were not there. It was as if they were were being layered on to reality, and if they kept getting clearer he would suddenly find himself in that other location.

He supposed, in a less abstract way, that's really what he was doing. From what he could judge, he was gaining on them. With only three days to go until Amethyst's birthday, any amount of progress he could make was good. And if the woman's flustered reaction to his leaving that morning was any indication, he was getting too close for her comfort.

(He still didn't know what he was going to do when he caught up with them, precisely, but that didn't exactly bother him. Thinking about the situation wouldn't make it any better, according to his estimation, and it would be better that someone tried to stop her — that _he _tried to stop her — than if no one did at all.)

* * *

><p>Amethyst and the woman traveled along the road, still heading east, for all of the morning and most of the afternoon without stopping. The princess expressed her hunger at a reasonable time (a bit past noon, which was really quite patient of her, seeing as all she'd had for breakfast was half of a stale muffin. And since her hands were more or less numb from their constant confinement, she'd ended up losing a lot of the muffin to crumbs that ended up on the ground.) The woman, however, just muttered about losing time and said nothing more on the matter.<p>

The scenery they were passing was beginning to change, the further east they rode. When they were in southwestern Syndoc, there were mostly blank spaces of barren terrain cut occasionally by streams or patches of rock. As they headed further east and slightly north, a forest had risen up on the northern side of the path. Now, the road had no choice to cut through the forest, leaving them to ride in an unnerving half-light marked by the shadows of evergreens. Beneath the horse's hooves, the path grew rockier. Amethyst wondered if they were nearing mountains, or if Syndoc was just like this. The cooling air added to her suspicion.

"I'm freezing," Amethyst said waspishly. This was the third time she had tried to get the woman's attention, and her patience — already thin to begin with — was gone. "And I'm going to eat this rope if we don't stop to eat soon."

"We're almost there," the woman said by way of reply.

"He's catching up, isn't he?" Amethyst said, peering behind them again. Pulling her back away from the woman's warmth made her teeth chatter, however, and she soon faced forward again, pressing her back close to the witch.

"Not fast enough," she said.

"Hurry up, Tyrillius," Amethyst murmured, hugging herself tightly to keep warm — a difficult motion, given that her hands were tied in front of her.

In doing this, however, Amethyst felt the rope slip slightly. It wasn't tied as tightly as usual; the woman had been in a rush to begin riding that morning and must have forgotten to secure the knot properly. Her mind began to race.

She couldn't get off the horse, as her legs were still tied to the saddle. But, if she was able to free her hands, she _might _be able to grab the reigns and shake the woman off. It was risky, and had a high probability of not working (she was, after all, almost sixteen and palace-bred, while the woman was older and stronger and clearly knew her way around the world) but she was willing to try anything. The worst that could happen is that she would die, right? And wasn't that going to happen anyway?

The feeling of having nothing to lose exhilarated her, made her feel invincible.

Under the guise of trying to warm up, Amethyst continued shifting her arms every few minutes, slowly loosening the bond on her hands until it was loose enough that she thought she'd be able to yank them free.

"Here we are," the woman said with relief; barely visible through the low-hanging branches of the trees in front of them was a small cabin.

Amethyst took her chance while the woman was distracted; she pulled her hands free of the rope and elbowed the woman hard in the gut with one motion, then lunged for the reigns before the woman could quite recover.

"Always complicating things," the woman said, out of breath and fighting to keep her grip on the ropes.

"So they tell me," Amethyst grunted, elbowing the woman again and managing to snag the leather reigns with one hand.

The horse was being led in about four different directions at this point, and he was not pleased with the situation. He whinnied and pranced a little in place, feeling the struggle on his back and wishing that it would stop. He hadn't asked to be taken from his stable in the middle of the night, and while he had nothing against adventures, he rather liked it when people were peaceable about them.

Amethyst had just gotten a firm grip on the reigns and was now mercilessly punching and shoving the woman in an attempt to knock her from her seat when the woman was finally able to get what she had been trying to extract from her pocket all along.

"Not fa—" was all Amethyst could say before the fog clouded her mind and she slumped backward into the woman's chest once more.

"Witches don't play by the rules," the woman said, corking the vial and waving the remnant of the smoke away from her face. "You really do pack a punch, lass," she added on as an afterthought, grimacing at the bruises she knew were now forming along her ribs. Thankfully the princess wasn't strong enough to break anything.

"It's easy enough when you're fighting a defenseless girl," a voice said through the trees.

It was only then that the woman heard the sound of hooves clattering on stone.

"I wouldn't call her defenseless," the woman said, quickly dismounting and wrapping the reigns around a nearby tree branch. She didn't think the horse would wander, but in case he got spooked, she didn't need to be trying to find them in this maze of a forest.

"Tied up, drugged and weaponless," the voice said, as the owner of it finally came into view. "I would call that defenseless."

Tyrillius looked grim, and prepared for battle. His eyes flicked to Amethyst, now hunched over the horse's neck, then to the woman standing between them.

"I don't want to kill you," the woman said, in that same tone of odd desperation.

"Then don't," Tyrillius said, also dismounting and walking closer to her. "Just give the princess to me, and I'll leave."

"It doesn't work like that," the woman said, reaching into her pocket. "Don't come any closer. This is your last warning. I've killed dozens of people, people just like you, and I'll do it again without flinching."

Tyrillius stopped walking. He couldn't see what she was pulling from her pocket; her hand shielded it. Not to be outmatched, he pulled a short sword from the sheath on his side, and noted that her eyes lingered on it before returning to his. Warm brown, her eyes, he thought, and the observation startled him. Why had he noticed that? Something was pulling at his mind, but he didn't know what.

"I don't believe you," Tyrillius finally said. He didn't know why he disbelieved her, why he would put murder past this woman who clearly wished to kill the princess, but there it was.

"_I_ don't believe that you would kill me," the woman said, glancing again at his sword. "You are too young, too idealistic, too unstained."

"Is that a bad thing?" Tyrillius asked, and began walking forward again, faster this time.

"Stop," the woman warned, clenching her fist tighter around the object Tyrillius couldn't see.

"No," Tyrillius said, and he lifted his sword at the same time as the woman opened her hand; they were only feet from each other.

Tyrillius barely had time to see the small charm the woman was holding before the flat of his sword connected with her hand. The words the woman had been rapidly muttering tightened into a yelp of pain as the charm went flying. The side of her hand was bleeding where he had caught it with the edge of the sword, but neither of them noticed. He tried to maneuver his sword to her throat, but she kicked him in the knee and sent him stumbling back a step. When he had regained his balance, she held a long dagger in her hand.

He tried to knock that from her grip as well, but she was prepared this time; she sliced his arm as he swung, halting his blow.

"Goodnight, prince," the woman said, a smile slipping onto her face.

It took Tyrillius only a moment to begin to feel lightheaded, then sick, then entirely too sleepy; the blade must have been dipped in a sleeping potion, he realized. The woman grabbed his wounded arm, forcing him to drop his sword with a cry, then carefully eased him onto the ground.

"Always with the sleeping people," she said with a sigh, and that was the last thing Tyrillius heard.


	13. Chapter 13

**26 . 10 . 13**

* * *

><p>Amethyst woke up when a bowl clattered down beside her head, narrowly missing her nose.<p>

"Still hungry?"

Amethyst looked up at the unfocused figure blearily, trying to remember what was going on. The room was unfamiliar. It was small, with a tiny window high up on the wall to her left, a half-rotted wooden chest against the wall in front of her, and a door to her right. _The safe house_, she remembered. They must have arrived.

"It's not much, but it's food," the woman said, turning to leave the room. "You might want to eat it before it gets cold."

Amethyst sat up, leaning too hard on an elbow as she pushed herself upright and gasping in surprised pain. She suddenly remembered what had happened right before she slept. Her desperate escape attempt, hence the sore elbows. And unless she had imagined it, she thought she had heard Tyrillius as she was drifting off to sleep…

"What have you done with the prince?" she shouted as the woman closed the door. "Where is he?"

"Princess Amethyst?" The voice came from the wall next to her head, and it sounded as sleepy as she felt. "Is that you?"

"Prince Tyrillius?" She couldn't decide whether she was relieved that he was alive or furious that he'd gotten captured instead of saving her. What sort of hero was he, anyway?

"Yeah, it's me," the voice said through the wall. "I think there was a sleeping potion on the blade she fought with."

"She does enjoy her underhanded fighting," Amethyst said, leveling a glare at the door where she had last seen the woman. "It's rather annoying."

"I can hear you, you know," the woman's voice sing-songed through the closed door.

"I don't really care about the opinions of people who are looking to kill me, thanks!" Amethyst hollered back nastily.

"Sorry I didn't rescue you," Tyrillius said. He sounded discouraged, and a bit embarrassed. Amethyst just sighed, her frustration and equal discouragement evident.

"She has potions and magic; it wasn't exactly a fair match. Why didn't you just turn back? Or get help? Well," she reflected, "I suppose there wasn't time for that. But surely you knew, or figured out, what she was?"

"I had to try," the prince said. "I couldn't let you disappear without a fight."

Amethyst was struck by the unselfishness and nobility in that response. Of course, she did not know of the suspicion Tyrillius had been placed under, by both the Folalli people and his own kin. His action was perhaps slightly less noble than she gave him credit for.

But, not wanting to bring added (and frankly irrelevant) stress to the situation, Tyrillius wisely kept mum about the details.

"Well, thanks," Amethyst finally said, stumbling over the phrase.

Tyrillius didn't answer. Amethyst imagined he might have shrugged or smiled had they been in the same room. (He did, in fact, do both of those things.)

Unsure what else to say, Amethyst picked up the bowl of soup the woman had given her and began to drink it hungrily. It tasted like the soup the cook always made her when she was sick, and the similarity was enough to drop her heart a few inches. She suddenly lost her appetite and put the soup on the floor.

It was three days until her birthday, and she was forcibly struck with the realization that she would never see the cook again, never taste his soup when her nose was running and she felt achy. Visions of the palace workers surfaced in her mind, one at a time. The hands of gardeners who washed her scraped knees when she fell running along the garden paths, and tried to smooth her wrinkled skirts with their dirt- and grass-stained palms. The swirling aprons of the kitchen staff, sullied with evidence of delicious meals past, and with pockets full of treats for the princess. Their flour-white hands, lifting her to sit on the counter and stir the soup, the cake, the punch. Her maids, Renee — all smiles and laughs, soothing her with gentle hands after a nightmare, or before a ball or royal visit. Earl, laughing with her in the days before the party — it seemed so long ago — and somehow convincing her she was getting her way when she wasn't, exactly. He had a way of distracting her, with his intent stares, his embarrassed grins. There was so much left to say.

Amethyst didn't realize she was crying until she felt the first tears drop onto her sleeve. It would be the first of many tears in the days to come.

* * *

><p>After Amethyst grew quiet, Tyrillius was left with his own thoughts, and his quietly aching head. The potion had thrown him into sleep, and Amethyst's shout had drawn him back just as quickly. His head did not appreciate all the sudden movement, it seemed.<p>

He tried to take his mind off the dull pain by examining the space he was confined to. The room was small, less than a third the size of his own bedchamber, with barely space enough for a small bed and perhaps a dresser, or a vanity (Although none of those things were present at the moment.) As he looked around at the obviously poorly-constructed walls and hastily-constructed support column which was located in the direct middle of the room, he amended his thoughts. More likely, the space was built to hold a straw pallet and a chest. This did not seem the sort of place that would have housed much furniture. Now, it was completely empty, leaving the uneven wooden walls and floors to tell their own story. And the support column. Tyrillius wondered at its purpose, in the direct middle of the room.

(Truthfully, even the with wasn't sure why there was a support column there. But she suspected that part of the roof had caved in at some point, and the column had been erected right in the middle of the bedroom in order to keep it from happening again.)

Scrapes and stains were scattered throughout the room, and after Tyrillius noticed a larger brown stain that might have been blood, he stopped looking and focused his attention on the door.

It was solid, more solid than anything else in the room, and Tyrillius assumed that was intentional. An experimental tug on the door barely budged it; the lock held firm and gave no sign of weakness. It had obviously been replaced, Tyrillius noticed, squinting at the area around the lock. The wood was a different color than the wall, and smoother. The lock was a sturdy black iron — not brand new, but probably forged within the past several years. (Possibly the lock had been replaced in anticipation of someone following the princess, but Tyrillius didn't want to think about that.)

He could hear footsteps and a series of gentle taps and bumps which he assumed were from the witch concocting some sort of deadly potion — or perhaps dinner. He was still seeing flashes of her activities, but it was difficult to tell what she was doing precisely. He thought he caught a low humming every now and then, but he couldn't be sure. In any case, the stress of pursuing Amethyst for so many days with so little sleep finally started to catch up with him, weighing on his arms, his chest, his head. He sat back down against the wall, as there was no better place in the room to recline. The rhythmic sounds from beyond the door began to sound less threatening and more peaceful, as did the glimpses of hands chopping, pressing, stirring — Tyrillius soon found himself asleep, slumped against the wall with his head leaning against the rough wood.

A few hours later, he was awakened.

"Alright," the woman said, opening the door of Tyrillius' room and making him jump. The woman noticed that and raised an eyebrow. "I unlocked the door. Didn't you hear me coming?"

"Ah, um, not really," Tyrillius said, rubbing his eyes. "I was — sort of — asleep, I think. Must've nodded off."

"I see," the woman said, locking the door again behind her.

Tyrillius heaved himself to his feet, stretching the stiffness from his back and trying to clear his mind of sleep. He didn't want to appear any more vulnerable than he already was (which was quite vulnerable, incidentally).

"What do you want?" he asked her, folding his arms across his chest aggressively.

He was aware that the gesture might not look as much intimidating as childish, but he did it anyway and hoped for the best. (He _did_ look very childish. The woman had to fight a wry smile.)

"I want you to hold still, so I can take this spell off of you," she said, fishing around in her pocket for something.

"What spell?" Tyrillius said, glancing down at himself as if the magic would make itself apparent in the form of green slime or a nasty insect. "How did you even put a spell on me?"

"The one that let me into the castle, and the one that has been leading you toward me ever since."

"Yes, I was going to ask about that," Tyrillius said, pointing a finger at her. (He still failed to look intimidating.) "What exactly did you do to me? Not that I didn't enjoy being able to follow you, but now that all you're doing is muttering and cooking things, seeing and hearing everything you do is far less helpful."

"I didn't do it on purpose," the woman said irritably. She pulled something out of her pocket, frowned, then started digging deeper.

"Some witch you are," Tyrillius said snidely, finally finding his boldness.

The woman made no reply. It was then that the first part of her statement finally made its way into Tyrillius' understanding.

"Wait, you put a spell on me that let you into the castle?"

"How else do you think I got past all the stringent magical roadblocks?" the woman said, finally extracting the correct charm. "Now, hold still."

"I have a feeling you're going to put a worse spell on me," Tyrillius said, dodging left.

The woman rolled her eyes in frustration.

"I'm not. I'm trying to take this one off. I don't like seeing and hearing everything _you _do, either. You're not exactly the Prince of Entertainment."

"Maybe if I wasn't locked up in a room, I'd be more interesting," Tyrillius shot back.

"The point _remains," _the woman said, "that I'm not putting another spell on you."

"I still don't believe you," Tyrillius said, edging out of her direct line of sight — behind the questionably-placed supporting column.

"I swear!" the woman said, walking around the pole; Tyrillius shifted as well.

"Oh, the word of a witch. I'm convinced," he quipped, ducking his head back out of sight. He wasn't sure how much of him she needed to hit, so he decided he'd just stay as much out of sight as possible, to be safe.

"For the love of all things holy," she snapped. "Stand still, or I'll knock you out again. There's no point putting another spell on you. I don't need anything from you. All I need is for you to stay locked up in here until I kill the princess. Then you can run home — I don't care."

She did have a point, Tyrillius thought. She hadn't killed him already, so she obviously wasn't harboring any animosity toward him. She was probably as annoyed by the constant visions as he was. (And, being knocked unconscious by a potion was not an experience he was eager to repeat.)

"Fine," he relented, stepping out from behind the pole. "Only if you promise not to do anything else."

"Not on purpose," the woman said, rubbing the charm with her thumb and closing her eyes.

"What does that mean?" Tyrillius said, suddenly wary again.

The woman opened her eyes, irritated at the interruption.

"Well, spells are obviously not my forte," she said. "And taking them off is three times as hard. You remember what happened to your carriage?"

Tyrillius blinked at the subject change.

"…Yes? How do you even know about that?"

"That was a leftover spell," she said, glossing over his question. "I never bothered to undo it, because it was far too much work, and your carriage ran over the exact spot. So, it lost a wheel."

She at least had the decency to look slightly embarrassed.

Tyrillius was very disturbed at the thought that she had been watching them from afar; he didn't know how else she could know what exactly had happened to the carriage. His expression was so indicative of his feelings on the matter that the woman grudgingly decided to respond to his question, at least to get that look off his face.

"I drove you into town," she said, with the tone of someone who is reminding a friend of something very obvious that they forgot.

This only served to make Tyrillius more confused.

"But that was an old woman…"

"For goodness sake," the woman breathed. "Princes are getting stupider every year."

By the time Tyrillius had blinked, the woman was gone and Marthe was standing in front of him.

"Ringing a bell?" she said.

"So, which one is … really you?" Tyrillius said, making an admirable attempt to remain unfazed, despite the fact that a kindly old woman that he had been thinking about rewarding handsomely if he could find her had turned out to be the very woman who was trying to kill his sort-of fiancee. (He was doing very well, given the circumstances.)

"Neither," the old woman said. "It's a good way to evade detection, changing your shape. I haven't looked like myself in years."

"Show me," Tyrillius said, almost before he knew he was saying it.

He felt as surprised as the woman looked.

"What?" she asked, white eyebrows knitting together.

"Nothing," Tyrillius said quickly, glossing over his strange request. "You never told me how you put the spell on me, either," he said.

"A quick kiss to the knuckles was all I needed," the woman said.

Tyrillius remembered the exchange, and had a sudden panic about whether anyone else had been putting a spell on him when they kissed his knuckles over the years.

"Not likely," the old woman laughed, changing back into the form she had had for most of Tyrillius' interaction with her. Suddenly, the curly hair and crow's feet looked fake, like a mask.

"Have you been able to read my thoughts this whole time?" Tyrillius said, understandably horrified.

"Only the loud ones," she said, still chuckling. "Is that enough to let me try now?"

"I suppose," Tyrillius said, thoroughly unnerved by this mind-reading, shape-shifting, spell-casting woman.

"Alright," the woman said, closing her eyes one more time and gripping the charm firmly.

Tyrillius held very still, though he wondered how much that really mattered. It wasn't like she was looking at him, anyway, if she was aiming something. She might actually be more likely to hit him with the anti-spell-thing if he was trying to move into its way. He watched her lips move in silent magical words, and waited for something to happen.

What happened next was no fault of the woman's spell-casting, nor of Tyrillius' moving or not moving. The woman said every word in the correct order and with the correct emphasis; she rubbed the charm in the correct direction the correct number of times, and generally did everything she was supposed to. As surprising as that was in itself, it was all the more surprising when the spell, instead of undoing itself as it should have done, compounded without warning.

Tyrillius, who had been standing as still as he could (even though his nose itched) suddenly found himself in a place quite other than the room in the woodland house. He was standing instead in a stable and, if he judged the heat and smell correctly, it was sometime near the end of summer. Given that moments ago it had been spring, he was puzzled. He was more puzzled, and quite discomfited, when he looked to his left and found a pair of teenagers kissing quite passionately against the stable wall.

He coughed and looked away quickly, but they paid him no mind. It was as if they couldn't hear him at all. After several more coughs, it became apparent to him that they couldn't hear him. It was another noise entirely that caused the couple to break apart, the boy looking guilty and the girl, impassive. They both looked to be about fifteen or sixteen.

So did the girl standing at the entrance of the stable, who had interrupted them with a shrill scream. In fact, she looked almost identical to the girl who had just been fervidly enjoying the boy's company. The black hair, pale skin, and slender-but-tall stature was mirrored in both of them, and Tyrillius determined that they had to be twins.

"I'm sorry, Cherilyn," the boy said helplessly, looking at the girl at the door, but she had eyes only for her sister, who was looking offensively unrepentant.

"The one thing that was mine," Cherilyn said in a low voice. "The only thing your charms and mother's plans hadn't stolen from me yet." Her voice was building, and it made Tyrillius swallow and step back, even though she couldn't see him. "_The only thing I ever dared to want!"_

Her shriek pierced the air and sent the boy scrambling from the stable in fear. Her sister hadn't blinked, nor had her expression changed from one of haughty coolness.

"I know you think I'm weak, sister," Cherilyn spat, "that I have no guts, no spine. Oh, but today it's my turn to mete out consequences, to ruin lives."

Cherilyn pulled something from her pocket, and it was apparent from the look on her sister's face that she thought it was a knife. What appeared in the palm of her hand was worse than a knife, however — a small figurine of an owl glared at the girl with eyes of amber.

Finally, the girl's facade broke; her eyes widened in surprise and fear.

Cherilyn saw that and smiled nastily. She began rubbing the owl's wing as she spoke next, walking closer to the girl as she did so, until they were standing nose to nose.

"This day has been long in coming. You deserve to die for the cruelties you have inflicted on me, the most unforgivable of which have been those you allowed mother to commit without a whisper of argument."

"Please," the girl said, eyes growing wider still as she saw amber strands of light snake out from between Cherilyn's fingers, now only a breath from her own. "I never-"

"You never," Cherilyn interrupted flatly. "That's just so."

"I didn't—"

"You never," Cherilyn continued, eyes blazing, "never thought of me, of my feelings, of my prospects. You never did a kind thing to me. You never spoke words that weren't orders. You never gave a second thought to _stealing_ and _ruining_ my only reason for _living at all_. You never-did—_anything_ that wasn't for _yourself_."

The girl could only whimper in fear as the strands of light began to lick at her fingers with the warmth of flame.

"But, I'll extend you some grace, dear sister, in your punishment. I will give you a choice."

All the bravado was gone from the sister now, as she pulled her hands away from the light and curled them behind her back. It seemed that she couldn't move her feet. Cherilyn was still smiling.

"I can kill you now, you know," she said, obviously relishing the gasp her sister couldn't contain. "Or, you can live out your days embodying the evil in everyone's life. You can be that spectre lingering at the edge of their vision, that shadow they blindly hate because they can never see its face."

"Please!" the girl shouted, voice so full of fear that it made Tyrillius cringe. The fiery tendrils of amber had begun to twist around the girl's arms and creep up to her shoulders. "Please don't kill me!"

Tyrillius couldn't be sure the girl had really heard her options, so distracted by the deadly magic snaking its way toward her heart, but that sentence appeared to seal her fate.

"Very well then," Cherilyn said, and the girl collapsed.

Tyrillius fell to the ground at the same time, his vision going black.

"I thought you weren't doing anything else to me!" Tyrillius said, as soon as he'd regained consciousness and found himself in the cottage in the woods once more.

"I didn't do it on purpose," the woman said, but she sounded less annoyed and more out of breath.

The hand that rubbed at her eyes was shaking.

"What was that?" Tyrillius said, in a voice much quieter; he sensed the gravity of the situation intuitively. "What did I see?"

"Describe what happened," the woman said shortly. "I don't know if we were in the same place."

"There was a stable, and two girls—"

"Okay," the woman interrupted, pulling her hands away from her eyes and standing up briskly. She looked much more composed than she had been a moment ago; Tyrillius wondered if he hadn't imagined her hand shaking. "You were in a memory of mine."

"Of yours?" Tyrillius said, momentarily confused before he remembered that she hadn't always looked like she did now.

"Yes," the woman replied brusquely, then she turned and left the room, not even stopping to pick up the charm that had fallen to the floor.

It was a tiny owl, with amber eyes.


	14. Chapter 14

**12 . 12 . 13**

* * *

><p>The next day dawned, two days before Amethyst's birthday. Two days before she would die.<p>

She was beginning to come to terms with that, in her head, though outwardly she began to act more and more desperate. She was aware that she was being childish, but the driving force compelling her to act like a lady had been all but silenced by a simple and powerful instinct: Staying Alive. In the more ancient legends this was called _hubrith: _the return of the natural man. This instinct pushes away all constructed and rehearsed behavior, labeling it Useless and Out Of Context in the life-or-death situation. All that is left of a person is the character that _hubrith_ cannot vanquish — the character they were born with, and the qualities they innately possess. They become the person they always were when no one was watching.

The witch knew that. She had seen many people die, over the years. Usually by her hand, but not always. If the death was swift and unexpected, the person usually died with honor, and with a sense of peace inexplicable to those still living. When death was drawn out, however, and dreaded, that is when _hubrith_ began to take effect, ridding people of all the manners and lessons they had accumulated over the course of their lives. Though many knights appeared the same in normal situations — chivalrous, brave, loyal, and honorable — only a looming death revealed which had become so by choice, and which had simply been born with those qualities.

She never faulted a man who died begging for his life, nor did she fault a man who faced death bravely. They were only being themselves, after all; who was she to pass judgment on a person's character? They couldn't help who they were. In fact, she had often thought that the men who had achieved such character by a lifetime of devotion and work were more worthy of respect than those who were simply honest or kind by nature. They had spent countless hours and years repressing their unfavorable qualities and nurturing better ones — a noble task, if ever she had seen one.

(This then led her to wonder if those men _weren't_, in fact, nobler by nature than the kind ones, but that thought only led to headaches, so she soon gave up contemplating it.)

Amethyst was acting like a scared child; she _was _a scared child. The witch knew she could no longer comfort her, that her presence would only increase the hysteria and bitter tears, so she did the kindest thing she could do: she stayed away from the princess' room and let _hubrith_ take its course.

The task of comforting the girl, then, fell to Tyrillius. While they were in separate rooms, they had discovered a small hole between the walls, through which they could talk and occasionally catch a glimpse of one another. It wasn't much, but having a calm, sorrowful presence always at her back comforted Amethyst to a degree that she couldn't even fully comprehend.

On Tyrillius' part, he felt it was the least he could do, given that he couldn't save her. The connection between his mind at the witch's had lessened, but had not been fully erased. As such, she could always tell when he was thinking of ways to escape, and she foiled any idea he had before he could implement it. This left Tyrillius with nothing to do but listen when Amethyst cried and talk to her when she wasn't, telling her Syndocian myths to distract her and pass the time.

All of the second day and much of the third passed in this way. It was only after Amethyst had finally slumped into a fitful sleep, and Tyrillius had rested his head against the wall as well, that the witch entered his room again.

"I need the charm," she said quietly, approaching him. Her face was grave, and she looked older than before.

Tyrillius watched her through the slits of his barely-open eyes, but didn't respond. He knew she would know he was awake, but he still wasn't going to give in that easily. He'd figured out from her stray mutterings and actions that she needed the charm to finish up the spell that would draw Amethyst to the spindle and eventually kill her. He'd tried very hard, then, to think forcefully of other things as he picked up the charm and pocketed it, but either she'd figured out that he had it anyway, or she was bluffing.

Hoping for the latter would indicate that he thought about the charm at all; Tyrillius hoped for nothing. He just let his eyes close the rest of the way and kept his mind blank.

"I know you have it," she said.

She didn't really. If Tyrillius had been hoping it was a bluff, he would have been correct. But since he wasn't hoping for anything, his face echoed what was happening in his mind. (Which was, of course, nothing. That's a very hard thing to do, actually: thinking of nothing.)

She heaved a sigh. She didn't have the patience to deal with this; she never did. She was the idyllic Evil Witch in that way, at least.

"Just give it to me. Or I can give you another taste of the sleeping blade, if you like, and take it from you."

For all the encouragement Tyrillius was giving her, she might as well have been threatening a rock.

"Tyrillius."

No response.

"Honestly, would you just—"

"What's your name?" he asked, cutting her off.

He knew that if she kept bringing up the charm, he would eventually think about where it was hidden, and he didn't know how much she could see of his thoughts. He saw and heard things from her in spurts of calm, mostly at night as she fell asleep. But he was fairly certain she could hear more of his thoughts. After all, he'd thought of all the escape plans in the middle of the day, and she'd stopped every one.

Tyrillius thought that asking a question of his own would distract her, at least for a little while. He might be fighting a losing battle, but he was going to go down fighting. (And, though he might not have admitted it to himself, he wanted to know the answer.)

The woman just stared at him, very clearly distracted.

"None of your business," she said, frowning.

"Names aren't dangerous," Tyrillius countered. His head was still back against the wall, and his eyes were still closed. It was easier to focus that way. "Why are you afraid to share yours?"

"It's not fear," she said, almost angrily.

"Your sister didn't even call you by your name, in that memory," he said. He'd thought about that a lot since that evening. "Is it particularly horrible?"

"No," the woman said slowly. "Not really, I don't suppose."

Tyrillius didn't say anything; he could tell she wanted to say something else.

"I always thought it was a bit extravagant," she finally said. "But it's not bad."

"Were you a lady, then?" Tyrillius said.

Although she hesitated, she began to explain, very generally, her family's position. Tyrillius had expected that question to fall flat, but she was apparently willing to talk about her past. Tyrillius reflected that most people probably didn't ask for her story, since she was usually getting ready to kill them. The halting, awkward fashion of speech belied a story that was desperate to be told, but had been closed up for so long it had almost forgotten itself.

"My mother was," she started. "A lady. My father wasn't. So I wasn't, no."

The words stopped prematurely. Tyrillius let them hang in the silence for a bit before he said anything else.

"So, what were you then?"

"Just a girl," she said, and it sounded like a reflex.

"'Just girls' don't become witches," he said.

She didn't say anything for a while, leaving Tyrillius' mind to wander around thinking about anything but the charm. This was proving more and more difficult as time went on, and he began to think of the most odd and unconnected things in an attempt to distract himself. It was this line of unconnected tangents that led him to recall the fuzzy image of the dream he'd had days ago. He'd forgotten about it until just now, and there was something about it that his mind was trying to connect—

It was the girl. The girl in the stable was the same girl who had walked down the stairs. The girl with the owl figurine, Cherilyn, was the same girl who had gotten shunned by her mother. They were the same girls, the same family.

Tyrillius' eyes snapped open, meeting the woman's with a jolt of shock.

"Charlotta," he said, blinking still at the rapidity and glaring brightness of the revelation.

It was not that he knew the name — he'd never heard it before. It was that she had a name; that's what put the sympathy in his eyes. He'd said before that a name wasn't dangerous, but that wasn't entirely true. A name was dangerous to those trying to hurt you, to those who could find your family and destroy everything you loved. It made sense that the most feared witch in Ladyra would hide her name.

It was fortunate for her that her name had been given to that one person who, inexplicably, didn't necessarily want to see anything bad come of it.

They stared at each other, neither of them having a concept of speech. The woman's mind had gone completely blank. No one had said her name since that day in the stable. Not even Cherilyn, when she occasionally saw her, would admit that much of a connection between them. No one else recognized her — not after she'd discovered how to manipulate her appearance.

"You're not evil," Tyrillius said, and that statement sent her mind spinning and brought his to a halt.

He'd never thought she was evil — well, he hadn't thought about it, actually. But if he had, "evil" wouldn't have been a word he would use to describe her. She felt too much. He knew how much she felt — more than she let on.

He barely realized that he was standing up, but then he was walking toward her. He didn't know what he was going to do, exactly, but he had to do something. The look in her eyes was enough to break a lesser man's heart. He was catching glimpses and flashes of her life as she relived it, racing through memories at the speed of thought.

Tyrillius took her hand, trying to extend as much comfort as one stranger could to another.

Although, they weren't really strangers. He'd learned more about her in the past few days than anyone had known about her since childhood. And she knew more about him — things that really mattered, not just his age and darkest fears (her usual knowledge of princes, just in case she needed the information one day) — than she'd known about anyone she wasn't planning to kill.

She looked down at her hand, realizing that it was warmer than it had been a moment earlier and found Tyrillius holding onto it. (You must forgive her for being slow; emotional turmoil really muddles one's brain.)

"I am," she said, eyes still locked onto his hand. It was smooth, soft. A prince's hand, unused to hard labor. But his grip was strong. "Evil."

"You're not," he said, quietly, and the next words robbed him of whatever moment they had been sharing (as is often the case with such moments.) "You don't have to do this. You don't have to kill her."

"Ah, and here appears the true motive," she said, lifting her eyes to stare firmly past him. The gesture was rigid, but she couldn't quite make her voice match it. "That's what you're here for, though, isn't it?"

She pulled her hand free of his. He had no obligation to her; she didn't know what was making her take such leaps in her mind. To believe that he actually cared about her — where had that thought come from?

"That's not—" he said, realizing what he'd done (too late, of course, to do anything about it). "That _is_ why I'm here, but—"

She was already leaving. The rest of his sentence died on the tip of his tongue. It was a pity, too, because if the woman had actually heard it, she might have turned around.

_—but maybe I can save both of you._


End file.
